What is safeguarding and child protection?
As professionals who care for children every day at nursery, safeguarding and child protection in nurseries is a vital element of our daily practice:
- Protecting children from maltreatment
- Preventing the impairment of children’s health or development
- Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
- Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes
- Protecting specific children who are suffering, or are at risk of suffering significant harm.
Safeguarding Partners
A safeguarding partner in relation to a local authority area in England is defined under the Children Act 2004 (as amended by the Children and Social Work Act, 2017) as:
- The local authority
- The integrated care boards (ICB) for an area any part of which falls within the local authority area
- The chief officer of police for an area any part of which falls within the local authority area.
The three safeguarding partners should agree on ways to co-ordinate their safeguarding services; act as a strategic leadership group in supporting and engaging others; and implement local and national learning including from serious child safeguarding incidents.
Taken from page 72 of working together to safeguard children 2018.
‘Working together to safeguard children’ 2018 sets out how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.
It is an essential requirement that we have a Designated Safeguarding Lead. Our manager, is our Designated Safeguarding Lead and she has up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding issues.
Our Manager uses this knowledge and experience to make sure that our whole team is kept up-to-date with any changes to not only your internal procedures, but also local and national developments.
How do we ensure the children in our care at nursery are protected and safe?
- We must train all staff to understand our safeguarding policy and procedures – some of the most important in the nursery
- Our team must know exactly what to do in any given situation where a child’s safety and welfare may be at risk
- Inductions must include information on safeguarding and child protection – ensure staff level of understanding and competence in these areas is appropriate for their role
- We make safeguarding a permanent addition to every staff meeting e.g using safeguarding scenarios to help our staff to put your procedure into practice
- Assess safeguarding understanding and knowledge of each of our team members in supervisions
- Supervisions provide opportunities for each team member to discuss any issues relating to the child’s well-being, which enables the Manager to check their understanding of what they should be concerned about and what they need to do if they have concerns.
Disclosure and Barring Service Checks (DBS Checks)
DBS checks (or Disclosure Scotland for Scotland) enable employers to see if potential employees or volunteers have been convicted of anything in the past that affects their suitability to work with children.
