Скачать или смотреть 7 Key Points from the Working Together to Safeguard Children Document

Working Together To Safeguard Children is statutory guidance on inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in accordance with the Children Act 1989 and Children Act 2004.
The guidance covers the legislative requirements and expectations on individual services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and provides a clear framework for Safeguarding Children Partnerships to monitor the effectiveness of local services.

The guidance aims to help professionals understand what they need to do, and what they can expect of one another, to safeguard children. It focuses on core legal requirements, making it clear what individuals and organisations should do to keep children safe. In doing so, it seeks to emphasise what makes an effective safeguarding system.

The guidance was most recently updated in July 2018.

In July 2018, the Department for Education published a new edition of the statutory guidance Working together to safeguard children: a guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children (Department for Education, 2018)1.

The guidance sets out what organisations in England must to do safeguard all children and young people under the age of 18.

This briefing outlines the main changes in the 2018 version. Key areas covered include:

assessing need and providing help
organisational responsibilities
multi-agency safeguarding arrangements
local and national safeguarding practice reviews
child death reviews.
It also summarises further updates made in December 2020 in relation to information sharing, homelessness duty, references to domestic abuse and school's awareness of child mental health.

December 2020 updates to Working together to safeguard children includes additional guidance covering: • information sharing: the guidance clarifies that the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) do not prevent the sharing of information for the purposes of keeping children safe. Fears about sharing information must not be allowed to stand in the way of the need to promote the welfare and protect the safety of children. • homelessness duty: the guidance includes a new section on the homelessness duty. This duty requires public authorities – including social services functions like early help, leaving care and child protection - to refer any service users they consider to be homeless, or threatened with homelessness, to a housing authority. • domestic abuse: the updated guidance expands the list of potential threats to children and young people’s safety to include domestic abuse, including controlling or coercive behaviour. It states that practitioners should continue to expand their understanding of domestic abuse and the impact it has on children. Definitions of domestic abuse and controlling or coercive behaviour have also been added to the glossary. • child mental health: the updated guidance states the importance of staff awareness in schools that mental health problems can be an indicator that a child has suffered abuse, neglect or exploitation.

The guidance highlighted specifically that “practitioners should, in particular, be alert to the potential need for early help for a child who: • is disabled and has specific additional needs • has special educational needs (whether or not they have a statutory Education, Health and Care Plan) • is a young carer • is showing signs of being drawn into anti-social or criminal behaviour, including gang involvement and association with organised crime groups • is frequently missing/goes missing from care or from home • is at risk of modern slavery, trafficking or exploitation • is at risk of being radicalised or exploited • is in a family circumstance presenting challenges for the child, such as drug and alcohol misuse, adult mental health issues and domestic abuse • is misusing drugs or alcohol themselves • has returned home to their family from care • is a privately fostered child”. The 2020 update adds “having a parent/carer in custody” to this list. The guidance also included: • a new section on referral highlighting that anyone with a concern about a child’s welfare should make a referral to local authority children’s social care • a myth busting guide to information sharing • a new section on assessment of disabled children and their carers; young carers; children in secure youth establishments; • a new section on contextual safeguarding (renamed Assessment of risk outside the home in the 2020 update)