The Importance Of Having A Child Safeguarding Policy In Place
A child safeguarding policy is one of the most important things that a business or organisation that involves working with children should have in place.
Why?
Because children are vulnerable to exploitation or attack from criminals or people with bad intentions.
In this article, we’ll discuss what is meant by child safeguarding and how to make sure that you have a good, strong child safeguarding policy set up to protect children, your organisation, and your staff.
What is a child safeguarding policy?
In basic terms, a child safeguarding policy is a document that contains written statements on how your business or organisation will protect the children under supervision of you and your staff.
The main purpose of the child safeguarding policy is to protect children from harm. The document will outline what you will do to protect children from harm, how you will respond to any concerns or reports, and detail the procedures that you have in place.
In the next couple of sections, we’ll look at how you can prepare and write a robust child safeguarding policy.
Preparing to write your child safeguarding policy
Before you begin to write your child safeguarding policy, there are several things that you need to consider. The main things are:
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- Possible risks – You need to work out what or who within your organisation or business presents a risk to any children. You should also identify any particular situations or events that may pose a risk.
- Safe recruitment of staff – One of the biggest risks to children comes from staff members. You need to make sure that they are safe to work in a role where they supervise, teach, train, coach or care for children. The best way to do this is to make sure that all staff who will be working in safeguarding roles get an Enhanced DBS Check carried out.
- How to deal with concerns or reports – You need to set out clearly how your organisation will receive concerns and respond to allegations of wrongdoing towards children.
- Staff training – You need to train your staff to be aware of child safeguarding and how to handle problems. You should set out a strategy for raising staff awareness of child safeguarding.
- How it affects other policies – You need to be aware of how the child safeguarding policy will affect other policies, such as care plans for vulnerable children.
The best way to prepare for writing the child safeguarding policy is to do all of the above and involve people from different departments and roles within your organisation, including the actual children themselves.
Once the policy is written, you can also get feedback from a variety of people in your organisation.
What you need to include in the child safeguarding policy
There are several main sections of a thorough child safeguarding policy, including:
- The purpose of the policy – Think of this as a mission statement. It will lay out the aims and purpose of your organisation, related to child safeguarding. It will also give a brief description of how you are going to meet your responsibilities in this way.
- State the main points of law – Child safeguarding is covered by law and you should mention how your policy meets the guidance and legal requirements.
- Link to other policies – Make sure that you link to other relevant policies and procedures within your organisation, such as care provision policies.
- Define the policy scope – Set out who the policy is intended for, i.e. all children that are under the supervision or care of your organisation and any adults working directly with them.
- Include an equality and diversity statement – As with most legal policies, you should state how your organisation will commit to providing child safeguarding in an equal and non-discriminating way. All children should be protected equally, regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, disability, nationality, religion, identity, and sexual orientation. The policy also needs to recognise the needs and challenges that certain children may have, such as those with disabilities or those from minority ethnicities.
- Policy date – Make a note of the date when the policy was introduced and when it is due for review.
Next steps after writing the child safeguarding policy
When the child safeguarding policy has been written and is in place, the next thing you need to do is make all of your staff aware of its existence and where to find it.
The policy should be published and stored in a place that makes it easily accessible to anybody who wants to read it. Whenever you make any updates to the policy, you should let people within your organisation know.
Let us help you with DBS Checks
One of the main features of any child safeguarding policy is to make sure that your staff get the necessary DBS Checks carried out. Our online DBS Check service can help you by providing an easy and fast way to apply for DBS Checks and get the results within 24 hours.
If you have any questions, then contact one of our expert advisors today.
