Understanding Safeguarding — Law & Framework

The government's own guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018), defines safeguarding as covering four things: protecting children from maltreatment, preventing harm to their health or development, making sure they grow up in circumstances that support safe, effective care, and taking action so every child gets the best possible outcomes. In the UK, a child is legally anyone who hasn't yet turned 18.

Every healthcare professional who comes into contact with children carries a duty to safeguard them, promote their welfare, and protect them from harm — this includes recognising situations that might put a child's wellbeing at risk, knowing how to report a concern, and staying alert to children who may be vulnerable because of a parent or carer's own health or behaviour.

The competency framework

The intercollegiate safeguarding framework (which sits behind Working Together) sets out six levels of expected knowledge, skill and competency for child protection:

Levels 4, 5 and 6 (named professionals, designated professionals, and experts) apply only to specific specialist roles. This course covers Levels 1 and 2 — the minimum standard expected of any clinical professional who comes into contact with children, or their parents and carers.

What a Level 2 practitioner should be able to do

• Act as an effective advocate for the child or young person in front of you
• Be clear about your own role and responsibilities, and those of your colleagues
• Know how to refer a concern to social care, where that's relevant to your role
• Understand that a child's best interests come first, as reflected in law and in key guidance including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Act

The Protection of Children Act (POCA) 1999

POCA came into force in October 1999, and exists to keep a list of individuals considered unsuitable to work with children. Every regulated childcare organisation — and other bodies that come into contact with children, such as sports clubs — must refer relevant names to the Secretary of State for possible inclusion on that list, and must check prospective employees against it before employment. Anyone on the POCA list is ineligible to work with children.

Working Together to Safeguard Children (2010 and 2018)

This guidance sets out how professionals across health, social care and education should work together to promote a child's welfare and protect them from abuse and neglect — endorsing a coordinated, child-centred approach across statutory, voluntary and independent sectors alike. The 2018 update carries the same core principles as 2010, with additional guidance for higher safeguarding levels.

The guidance describes safeguarding activity across three broad areas: work that affects all children (identifying abuse, building a culture where safeguarding is everyone's job, safe recruitment practice); targeted work with groups at greater risk (children living away from home, missing from school, in the youth justice system, or affected by gangs); and responsive work protecting children already suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.

Part 1 of the Children Act 1989 sets out what must be considered when weighing up a child's welfare: their own wishes and feelings; their physical, emotional and educational needs; the effect of any change in their circumstances; their age, sex and background; any harm that has happened or could happen; how capable their parents or guardians are; and the full range of powers available to the court.

The Children Act 2004 aims to help children be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and achieve economic wellbeing.

Who counts as a "child"?

Under the Children Act 2004, a child is anyone under 18 (under the wider safeguarding framework, anyone not yet 19). The Act also extends "child" status to those aged 18, 19 and 20 if they've been cared for by a local authority at any point after turning 16, or if they have a learning disability.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalent legislation — the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 — with some differences in the detail, covered further in the next section.

When a UK court considers a child's claim under the Human Rights Act 1998, it looks to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee's own guidance for interpretation. The Convention is an international treaty granting every child a broad set of rights — including the right to have their views heard and taken seriously, the right to play and rest, and the right to protection from every form of harm. All children up to 18 hold these rights, with some groups (disabled children, or those living away from home) entitled to additional protections. The Convention itself runs to 54 separate articles.

The Human Rights Act has 18 articles in total, 7 of which are directly relevant to safeguarding:

• Article 2 — the right to life
• Article 3 — freedom from torture and cruel treatment, including within care settings
• Article 4 — freedom from slavery and forced labour
• Article 5 — the right to liberty and security, and to be treated with respect by public authorities
• Article 6 — the right to a fair trial, relevant to child protection conferences and related proceedings
• Article 7 — no punishment without law
• Article 8 — the right to respect for family and private life — meaning any safeguarding intervention in family life must be lawful and proportionate

In Scotland, safeguarding is generally referred to as Child Protection, and covers the same core idea — protecting children from abuse or neglect. The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 defines a child as anyone under 16, which can leave 16–18 year-olds sitting between two systems, meaning services need to work out whether the Children and Young People Act or the Adult Support and Protection Act better fits an individual's circumstances.

Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC)

GIRFEC is the Scottish Government's national practice model, backed by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. It's person-centred, considers the wider influences on a child's wellbeing, tackles risk early, and relies on genuine collaboration between children, parents and services — built around eight wellbeing indicators: safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, and included.

Every child under GIRFEC has a named person (often a health visitor or headteacher) as a consistent point of contact, and children at risk get a lead professional who builds and manages a personalised Child's Plan.

The Child Protection Register and Committees

Scotland's Child Protection Register (CPR) is a confidential list of children locally assessed as being at risk of significant harm, each with their own Child Protection Plan. Child Protection Committees (CPCs) coordinate the work of healthcare, social care and other services to keep those children safe.

As in the rest of the UK, every healthcare worker in Scotland has a duty of care toward children and young people, and must act on a welfare concern even if the child isn't their own patient — reported to the Named Person and via local child protection procedure, or straight to the police if there's immediate danger.