What is Safeguarding?
Safeguarding is about prevention of harm and early intervention to minimise the impact on the child. Safeguarding is a proactive preventative approach to child protection. Safeguarding examples include:
- Creating a culture where safeguarding and child protection is everyone’s responsibility.
- Implementing a procedure to ensure staff recruited are safe to be working with children (safe recruitment).
- Codes of Conduct for staff, volunteers, children and families.
- Establishing protocols regarding transportation, overnight stays or billeting of children.
- Zero tolerance of bullying.
- Robust Child Protection Policy and procedures, which everyone in the organisation knows and uses.
- Regular Child Protection training.
- Child centred practise.
Child protection is a reactive approach. It is part of a safeguarding process but details the action to follow when a child is identified as suffering from, or likely to suffer from serious harm – for example, a disclosure or suspected abuse and neglect.
