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General Enqs: 020 7730 3300
Parents’ Helpline: 08451 205 204
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Child Protection
Basic
Awareness
Clare and
Robin Watts
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Ground Rules
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This arena is not safe
Confidentiality applies at all time
Have fun even though serious subject
In exercises we are all equal
Ask questions
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Aim
• For all delegates to have a basic
understanding of safeguarding children
and child protection.
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Objectives
• To have a basic knowledge of signs and symptoms in
abuse in children
• To have an insight into the procedure once a referral
has been made.
• To know how to respond and speak to children who
are suspected of being abused, or disclose abuse.
• Understand what procedures they should follow when
abuse is suspected
• Have an awareness of the difficulties children face
during abuse
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Terms of reference
The welfare of the child is paramount
The welfare of the child is paramount
The welfare of the child is paramount
Guess what’s next…………
The welfare of the child is paramount
The welfare of the child is paramount
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• “Every year 25,000 young Russian
citizens become victims of child abuse,
and about 2,000 die at the hands of
their parents or care-givers.”
• http://comission.org/
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Definition of abuse
There will never be a single definition that
embraces the term abuse in its entirety due to
the fact that there are so many different types
of abuse and so many factors involved.
The Department of Health in its publication “NO
SECRETS” define abuse as “A VIOLATION OF
AN INDIVIDUAL’S HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS
BY ANY OTHER PERSON OR PERSONS”
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SAFEGUARDING & PROTECTING MEANS
PROTECTING CHILDREN
FROM PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL OR SEXUAL ABUSE
OR NEGLECT
HELPING THEM TO GROW UP INTO
CONFIDENT, HEALTHY AND HAPPY
ADULTS
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CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION CAN BE DIVIDED
INTO 2 MAIN CATEGORIES:
1.
CRIMINAL LAW – Beyond all reasonable doubt
2.
PUBLIC LAW – Balance of probabilities
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UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child (1989)
• Legally binding international instrument to incorporate
a full range of human rights for children
• Children needed a special convention just for them
• 54 articles which set out the basic human rights that
children have
• Core principles
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Non discrimination
Best interests of the child
Right to life, survival and development
Respect for the views of the child
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Right to Education ?
• The First Protocol : Article 2
• No person shall be denied the right to education. In
the exercise of any functions which it assumes in
relation to education and to teaching , the state shall
respect the rights of parents to ensure such
education and teaching in conformity with their own
religious and philosophical convictions.
• UK has accepted Article subject to reservation that it
does so only so far as it is compatible with the
provision of efficient instructions and training and the
avoidance of unreasonable
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Everybody’s problem
• Improving the way key people and bodies safeguard and
promote the welfare of children is crucial to improving
outcomes for children
• Child abuse occurs in all communities regardless of the gender
of the child or perpetrator, wealth, religion, culture or ethnicity
• “All those who come into contact with children and families in
their everyday work, including people who do not have a specific
role in relation to child protection, have a duty to safeguard and
promote the welfare of children.”
SCHOOLS
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Everybody’s problem : safeguard,
promote ,protect
“The support and protection of children
cannot be achieved by a single
agency… Every Service has to play a
part . All employees must have placed
upon them a clear expectation that their
primary responsibility is to the child and
his or her family.”
Lord Laming : Victoria Climbie Report
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What We Do.
• Ensure a prompt and effective ‘needs
led’ response when it appears that a
child may be at risk from abuse. Where
the abuse;
• A) occurs within the family or,
• B) committed by a carer, where the
victim is under 18 years of age.
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Why We Do It.
• The needs of the child are paramount and should
underpin all child protection work and resolve any
conflicts of interest.
• All children deserve the opportunity to achieve their
full potential.
• All children have the right to be safeguarded from
harm and exploitation WHATEVER their
circumstances.
• Statements about or allegations of abuse or neglect
made by children must always be taken seriously.
• Have regard for their wishes and feelings.
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How We Do It.
• Each local authority has a Child Abuse
Investigation Unit (police) attached.
• Referral.
• Planning/strategy meetings.
• Single/joint investigation.
• Case conferences
• Welfare Model or Justice Model
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Child in Need
Children In Need The Local Authority has two
important duties with respect to children in need
under Section 17:
• To safeguard and promote their welfare;
•To promote wherever possible their upbringing by their families.
The Act defines a child in need as follows as:
•a child who is unlikely to achieve or maintain, or to have the
opportunity of achieving or maintaining, a reasonable standard of
health or development without the provision of services by a
Local Authority; or
•a child whose health or development is likely to be significantly
impaired; or further impaired, without the provision for him of
such services; or
•a child is disabled.
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Child Suffering Significant
Harm
Where a local authorityhave reasonable cause to suspect that a child who
lives, or is found in their area is suffering, or likely
to suffer, significant harm,
the authority shall make, or cause to be made,
such enquiries as they consider necessary to
enable them to decide whether they should take
any action to safeguard or promote the child’s
welfare
Children Act 1989 s47(1)
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The Four Categories of abuse
• Neglect
• Physical abuse
• Sexual Abuse
• Emotional Abuse
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Categories of abuse
• 1. Neglect Persistent or severe neglect of a
child, failure to protect from danger, extreme
failure to carry out aspects of care resulting in
impairment of child's health or development,
including non-organic failure to thrive.
• 2. Physical abuse. Actual or likely physical
injury to a child, failure to prevent physical
injury or suffering, including deliberate
poisoning, suffocation etc and feigned and
induced illness (Munchhausen's syndrome by
proxy)
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• 3. Sexual abuse. Actual or likely sexual
exploitation of a child or adolescent. The child
may be dependent and/or developmentally
immature.
• 4. Emotional abuse. Actual or likely
severe adverse effect upon the emotional or
behavioral development of a child caused by
persistent or severe emotional ill-treatment or
rejection. All abuse involves some form of
emotional ill-treatment. This category should
be used where it is the sole or the main form
of abuse
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Some Behavioural Signs of
abuse
• Child bullies, threatens and is physically violent to other
children.
• Child hints at sexual activity through words, play or drawings.
• Child reacts strangely to sex education classes.
• Child who is sexually preoccupied and has a detailed knowledge
of adult sexual behaviour - key: taste, smell, feel.
• Age inappropriate play with toys, other children, especially
where elements of force or coercion of other children are
involved.
• Excessive and public masturbation in over 4's. Child is sexually
provocative towards adults.
• The sudden onset of wetting and soiling in a child who has
previously been continent.
• Preoccupation with urine and faeces or smearing / eating same.
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Behavioural Signs of abuse
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Persistent running away.
Placing self in dangerous situations.
Self-destructive behaviours and suicide attempts.
Sensory cut-off - the child who cannot feel extremes of
temperature, injuries, taste or smell.
Constant 'day-dreaming' and seeming to be in another world.
Compulsive lying.
'Losing' time.
The child who is fearful of certain situations or certain adults.
Eating problems - anorexia, bulimia and gross obesity.
Sleep disturbances and nightmares
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Behavioural signs cont….
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Pseudo-mature or overly compliant children.
Depression, withdrawal and frozen responses.
Isolated, poor peer group relations.
Aggressiveness, 'acting out’, 'attention-seeking', 'hyperactivity'.
Problems at school under/over performance, avoidance of medicals,
showers, changing for PE.
Overly worried / interesting in contraception, facts of life, HIV and AIDS.
Sexual abuse of other children - usually younger but not exclusively.
Fire-setting.
Injuring or killing animals.
The child who is labeled as 'school phobic' - early evidence of
acrophobia??
Super-sensitivity and 'mind reading' of adults.
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Exercise Two
• Barriers to reporting abuse by children
• Family conditions that can lead to abuse
• Conditions which optimise the likelihood
of a child disclosing abuse
• Professionals behaviour that can
impede a child’s safety
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Sources of Stress for
Children and Families
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Social Exclusion and Poverty
Racism
Domestic Violence
Drug and alcohol misuse
Mental illness
Parents with a learning disability
Working together Ch. 9 2010
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Social Exclusion and Poverty
• Many families are disadvantaged and
lack a wage earner. Poverty may mean
that children live in crowded or
unsuitable accommodation, have poor
diets, health problems or disability, be
vulnerable to accidents, and lack ready
access to good educational and leisure
opportunities.
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Racism
• Racism and racial harassment are additional
sources of stress for some families and
children. Although racism causes Significant
Harm it is not, in itself, a category of child
abuse. The experience of racism is likely to
affect the responses of the child and family to
assessment and enquiry processes. Failure
to consider the effects of racism will
undermine efforts to protect children from
other forms of abuse.
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Domestic Abuse
• Domestic abuse is defined as any incident of
threatening behaviour, violence or abuse
(psychological, physical, sexual, financial or
emotional) between adults aged 18 and over
who are or have been intimate partners or are
family members regardless of gender.
• The definition of "harm" in the term Significant
Harm - as in the ill treatment or impairment of
health and development - was recently
extended so that it is made explicit that harm
may include "impairment suffered from seeing
or hearing the ill treatment of another".
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Domestic Abuse
• Prolonged and/or regular exposure to
domestic abuse can have a serious impact on
a child's development and emotional
wellbeing, despite the best efforts of the adult
victim/survivor to protect the child. Anyone
working with children and parents/carers
should be alert to the frequent interrelationship between domestic abuse and the
abuse and neglect of children.
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Domestic Abuse
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Domestic abuse can have an impact on the safety and welfare of
children in a number of ways, including:
Children receiving blows or sustaining injuries during episodes of
domestic abuse
Children being emotionally harmed by witnessing the physical and
emotional suffering of parents/carers
The safety of an unborn child being threatened, where a pregnant
woman is assaulted; abuse often starts in pregnancy, escalates and is
linked to maternal death
The experience of domestic abuse having a negative impact on the
ability of the adult victim/survivor and/or perpetrator to look after the
children and form healthy relationships
Children living in poverty where the abusive partner controls family
finance
Poor communication between practitioners working across Local
Authority boundaries
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Drug or alcohol misuse.
• Drug or alcohol misuse of a parent or
carer does not necessarily have an
adverse impact on a child, but it is
essential to assess its implications for
any children involved in the family.
These children are recognised as being
vulnerable and it is this vulnerability that
needs to be assessed.
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Mental Illness
Mental illness in a parent or carer does not necessarily
have an adverse impact on a child, but it is essential
always to assess its implications for any children involved
in the family.
Parental mental illness can have an impact on children in a
number of ways including:
•restriction of social and recreational activities for children
•children taking caring responsibilities for adults or other
children inappropriate to their age
•neglect of a child's physical or emotional needs
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Mental Illness
• forms of mental illness may blunt parents' emotions
and feelings, or cause them to behave towards their
children in bizarre or violent ways; in extreme
circumstances this may place a child at risk of severe
injury, profound neglect, or even death
• post natal depression can be linked to behavioural
and physiological problems in the infants of such
mothers
• Where the parent has to be hospitalised, children can
find this difficult to understand why it has happened,
have difficulty coping with separation and older
children may feel the stigma of their parent being a
patient on an acute Mental Health ward.
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Professionals Behaviour.
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“THE RULE OF OPTIMISM”
• finding the most positive explanation for an injury
• over-estimating the level of progress made (Jasmine Beckford)
• too readily accepting explanations without exploring other possibilities
• taking a situation at face-value (Lucy Gates)
• putting off taking action until a later date (Malcolm Page)
• failing to follow procedures and informally talking to parents directly about concerns
that should have been addressed by a strategy meeting or through investigation
• failure to consider the significance of past agency experiences of dealing with the
family, for example, poor co-operation
• making decisions based upon opinion rather than fact (Lucy Gates)
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NEGLECT OF ASSESSMENT ROLE
• over-sympathising with their client’s life experiences
• the worker meeting their own needs by being a nurturer to
the
carer rather than focusing upon the child
• becoming over-supportive of carers need (Tyra Henry)
• not sharing concerns because workers feel uncomfortable
• workers not wanting to damage their relationship with the
family
• workers being too trusting of carers (Lucy Gates)
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RESPONSES TO STRESS
• over involvement leading to loss of objectivity –
failure to notice situations deteriorating or only
focusing upon current events.
• under involvement – avoidance of the family / failure
to visit (Heidi Koseida) or the use of gatekeepting to
exclude the need to make contact with the family.
• failure to act at all because of fear, stress or burnout
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WORKING TO DIFFERENT CHILD
PROTECTION STANDARDS
• lack of discussion of the standards expected of carers
between colleagues – operating with different assumptions
• operating different standards for different areas – for
example, in relation to social class
• absence of professional training to be able to assess
whether standards are appropriate
• using personal value systems that might allow different
standards than those of the agency
• tolerating a lower standard of care for looked after children
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FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE OR
SHARE CONCERNS
• professionalism – workers feeling they know the
family best and feel it unnecessary to discuss the case
with others
• unwillingness to break confidentiality (Christopher
Pinder)
• working alone – deciding not to share crucial
information (Reuben Carthy)
• Rivalry between agencies who do not see themselves
as part of the wider agency network
• staff being unaware or unclear about the inter-agency
procedures
• workers accepting behaviours because it is assumed
that they are cultural and therefore permissible
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FAILURE TO RECOGNISE
INDICATORS OF CHILD ABUSE
• ignoring clinical evidence – not noticing
physical signs of child abuse during visits
(Dingwall et al 1983)
• failing to consider the impact on children and
parents and carers negative responses to other
adults (such as domestic violence or
aggression.
• failure to gain entry or asking to see children
at risk (Kimberley Carlisle)
• natural love – assuming a carer is incapable
of harming a child (Lucy Gates, Dingwall et al
1993)
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FAILURE TO RECOGNISE
INDICATORS OF CHILD ABUSE
• dual pathology – focusing upon the risk of one type of abuse and
not considering whether the carer may be capable of other types of
abuse (Jasmine Beckford)
• not taking referrals seriously because the source is not valued
(Jasmine Beckford) or if the source is distrusted, for example,
seeing the referral as malicious (Doreen Aston)
• workers being too certain about their assessment of a situation
and failing to consider other possibilities
• failing to appreciate a “cry for help” from carers (Kimberley
Carlisle)
• failing to link together information or identify clusters of signs
(Heidi Kosida, Sukina)
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EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
ISSUES
• positive racial stereotyping – for example, assuming
that Asian of African-Caribbean families will be always
be supportive (Tyra Henry)
• cultural relativism – assuming that certain standards
are the norm for a particular area and under-reacting by
accepting lower standards than would be accepted
elsewhere (Dingwall et al 1983)
(This list is based upon a model by Tony Morrison)
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Every Child Matters
Outcomes
The five outcomes are: * Be healthy
* Stay safe
* Enjoy and achieve
* Make a positive contribution
* Achieve economic well-being
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Achieving Outcomes
1. Be Healthy - encourage a healthy diet,
plenty of sleep and exercise
2. Stay Safe – have all procedures in
place to minimise the possibility of harm
and abuse. Be aware of indicators of
abuse happening outside your
environment.
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Achieving Outcomes
3. Enjoy and achieve – make experiences for
the child as pleasurable as possible. Use
sensible progressions to achieve realistic goals
4. Make a positive contribution – enable
children to have a say in decision making.
Encourage young people to become involved
in all activities.
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Achieving Outcomes
5. Achieve economic well-being –
try to enable disadvantaged or minority groups to
participate in every way. No child should be
precluded from participation.
Help children grow in confidence. A confident
child is more likely to become a confident
adult.
Developing transferable skills
Give children an interest for life which could
possibly lead them contributing for example if
their interest is sport a sport-related career.
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Exercise Three
• Just how difficult is it to speak to
children then?
• 1st Try this exercise!!
• Then defence tactics………….
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Sample of defences
• HAYDN (1984) provided this summary for
judiciary to raise suspicion on children's
evidence.
• Firstly. A Childs power of observation are less
reliable that adults.
• Secondly. Children are prone to live in a
make believe world.
• Thirdly. They are egocentric, so that they
quickly forget details seemingly unrelated to
their own world.
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Haydn continued
• Fourthly. Because of their immaturity they are very
suggestible and easily influenced.
• Fifthly. Children often have little notion of the duty to
speak the truth, and fail to realise how important their
evidence is.
• Finally. Children sometimes behave in a way that is
evil beyond their years. They may consent to sexual
offences and then deny consent was given. They
may completely invent sexual offences, and may
enjoy making up allegations for revenge.
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The Interview
• Rapport (neutral topic, ground rules,
truth and lies, getting to know each
other).
• Free narrative account.
• Questioning (open, specific, closed &
leading questions).
• Closure (check, summarise, thank, give
advice, rapport).
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Questioning Children
Use open, or open specific questions as much as
possible
What, where, when, who, why and how.
Tell me, explain to me, describe to me, show me.
(TEDS)
A good example of an open question is “
“.
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A Child Discloses
• Ask questions only in relation to the disclosure in an
open manner to establish exactly what they are
saying.
• Have regard for their welfare.
• Listen to the child.
• Never stop a child who is freely disclosing abuse.
• Record date, time, place, and exact words used.
• Record all subsequent meetings with the child.
• Never promise confidentiality
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Designated Child Protection
Officers
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The Designated Child Protection Teachers in the Lower Campus are:
Mr Chris Charlton (Lower Primary Leader)
Mrs Clair Doubleday (Site Leader)
Ms Jane Austin (FS Leader)
The Designated Child Protection Teachers in the Upper Campus are:
Mr Paul Keach (Site Leader)
Mr Justin Noack (Upper Primary Leader)
Mrs Michelle Hamilton (KS 3 Leader)
Overall Head of Safeguarding
Mr Paul Seedhouse
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Why bother though
• Have a glance at some recent figures
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Facts and figures
• Each week at least one child will die as the result of an adult's
cruelty.
• A quarter of all recorded rape victims are children.
• Most abuse is committed by someone the child knows and
trusts.
• The abuse is often known about or suspected by an another
adult who could have done something to prevent it.
• Three-quarters of sexually abused children do not tell anyone at
the time. Around a third are not able to tell anyone about the
experience later.
• Government figures show that around 80 children are killed
every year, mostly by parents and carers in England and Wales.
This rate of child abuse deaths has gone unchecked for almost
30 years.
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Facts and figures cont;
• More than 30,000 children are on child protection registers
because they are at risk of abuse.
• Each week over 600 children are added to the child protection
registers.
• Recent NSPCC research involving 2,869 young adults revealed
that 1 in 10 of them had suffered serious abuse or neglect during
childhood.
• Each week at least 450,000 children are bullied at school.
• The current cost of child abuse to statutory and voluntary
organisations is £1 billion a year. Most of this is spent dealing with
the aftermath of abuse rather than its prevention.
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The Abuse Dichotomy
• I am being hurt, emotionally or physically, by a parent
or other adult who I love, care for, and trust deeply.
• Based on how I think about the world thus far, this
injury can be due to one of two things: either I am
bad, or my parent is bad.
• But I have been taught by other adults, either at
home or at school, that parents are always right, and
always do things for your own good (anything
alternative is just too frightening)
• So when parents or carers occasionally hurt you it is
for your own good, because you have been bad. This
is called punishment.
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The Abuse Dichotomy cont..
• Therefore, it must be my fault that I am being hurt, just as my
parent says. This must be punishment. I must deserve this.
• Therefore, I am bad as whatever is done to me. The punishment
must fit the crime: anything else suggests parental badness,
which I have rejected because parents do things for your own
good.
• I am bad because I have been hurt. I have been hurt because I
am bad.
• But I am hurt quite often, and or quite deeply. Therefore I must
be very bad.
• NB For a child to give up on self blame, s/he has to give up on
hope – hope that their parent(s) will change
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