National and London Guidance
- Multi-agency Practice Guidance
- Reviews of Child Protection Services
- London Child Protection Procedures
- Supplementary Procedures
Multi-agency Practice Guidance
Working Together 2013
This guidance replaces Working Together 2010 and sets out how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and how practitioners should conduct the assessment of children. The guidance includes a new approach to the oversight of serious case reviews, new guidelines for assessing the needs of vulnerable children, and marks a reduction in the level of national child protection guidance with the emphasis on core statutory functions. This also includes the revised framework for assessments. A useful summary of changes can be found on the London Safeguarding Children Board website (external link).
Information Sharing: Guidance for Practitioners and Managers
Information sharing is key to delivering better and more efficient public services that are coordinated around the needs of children, young people and families.
What to Do if You're Worried a Child is Being Abused
This document provides best practice guidance for those who work with children in order to safeguard their welfare. It also contains an appendix to help practitioners with the legal issues affecting the sharing of information. The guidance provides general information for anyone whose work brings them into contact with children and families, focusing particularly on those who work in social care, health, education and criminal justice services.
Children's Trusts
Children's Trusts are the sum total of cooperation arrangements and partnerships between local organisations, with a role in improving outcomes for children and young people.
Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education 2014
This document details the duties for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in education, including recruitment and selection processes, recruitment and vetting checks, and dealing with allegations of abuse against teachers and other staff.
When to suspect child maltreatment
The advice in this guideline from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - NICE (external link) covers the alerting features in children and young people (under 18 years) of:
- physical, sexual and emotional abuse
- neglect
- fabricated or induced illness
The guideline does not specifically look at the risk factors for child maltreatment, the identification of child maltreatment and procedures for supporting the child or young person, education and information for parents or children or young people, or training for healthcare professionals.
- When to suspect child maltreatment - 2009 (PDF, 1.9Mb)
- When to suspect child maltreatment - quick reference guide (PDF, 221Kb)
Disabled Children
This guidance is aimed at Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) partners and other professionals working with children and young people and their families. It is intended to help them safeguard and promote the welfare of disabled children and young people. It is supplementary to, and should be used in conjunction with, the statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013 (PDF 526 KB).
Fabricated Illness
This guidance is intended to provide a national framework within which agencies and professionals at local level - individually and jointly - draw up and agree upon their own more detailed ways of working together where illness may be being fabricated or induced in a child by a carer who has parenting responsibilities for him or her.
- Fabricated or induced illness by carers: January 2013 statement (PDF 75.6KB)
- Fabricated or induced illness by carers: a practical guide for paediatricians (PDF, 840Kb)
- Safeguarding Children in Whom Illness is Fabricated or Induced 2008 (PDF, 957KB)
- Review of Safeguarding Children in Whom Illness is Fabricated or Induced (PDF, 489Kb)
Reviews of Child Protection Services
- The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report (PDF 2.98MB)
- The Government's Response to the Munro Review of Child Protection (PDF 181KB)
- Protection of Children: A Progress Report - Laming (PDF, 1Mb)
- Government's Response to Laming Review (PDF, 568Kb)
London Child Protection Procedures
The London Child Protection Procedures (external link) set out how agencies and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children across London. Their target audience is professionals (including unqualified staff and volunteers) and front-line managers who have particular responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and senior and operational managers, in:
- Agencies which are responsible for commissioning or providing services to children and their families and to adults who are parents
- Agencies which have a particular responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
Following the publication of a revised Working Together to Safeguard Children Guide 2013, the London Board began the process of updating the London Child Protection Procedures in line with the new guidance.
Supplementary London Procedures
The London Child Protection Procedures (external link) are supported by a number of supplementary procedures on specific areas of practice.
Gangs / Serious Youth Violence
Following a number of requests to respond to the needs of children affected by gang activity and/or serious youth violence in London, the London Safeguarding Children Board (external link) has produced a supplementary safeguarding children procedure with the Youth Justice Board, London Serious Youth Violence Board and a multi-agency practitioners steering group.
Domestic Violence
The London procedure for safeguarding children abused through domestic violence should assist any professional and volunteer whose work brings them into contact with children and their families, to prioritise the needs of a child/ren, assess the risk of harm to the child/ren (taking into consideration the needs of their parents / carers) and respond appropriately in sharing information, referring on etc.
For more information, see:
- Safeguarding children abused through domestic violence (PDF, 902Kb)
- Safeguarding children abused through domestic violence - appendix 1: risk assessment matrix (PDF, 82Kb)
Children Missing from School
This good practice guide is designed to support professionals in education services both within the local authority and in schools and other educational establishments, together with the Metropolitan Police, LA children’s social care and health services, in their combined efforts to safeguard children who are missing from school.
The guidance is offered with the aim of providing a minimum standard of safety for children who are registered with London schools and who are or go missing from school, and give rise to concern that they may be classified as missing whereabouts unknown.
- Safeguarding children missing from school (PDF, 98Kb)
- Safeguarding children missing from school - Appendix 3 (PDF, 159Kb)
Missing from Care and Home
This procedure supports an effective collaborative safeguarding response from all agencies involved when a child goes missing. It provides guidance for assessing both the risk of the child going missing and the risk to the child when they are missing. The procedure describes appropriate staff / agency actions to locate the child, to effect their return and to identify the issues which caused, and may continue to cause, the child to go missing.
Female Genital Mutilation
This procedure provides guidance for frontline professionals and their managers, individuals in London’s local communities and community groups, such as, faith and leisure groups, on:
- Identifying when a child may be at risk of being subjected to FGM and responding appropriately to protect the child
- Identifying when a child has been subjected to FGM and responding appropriately to support the child
- Measures which can be implemented to prevent and ultimately eliminate the practice of FGM
- Safeguarding children at risk of abuse through female genital mutilation (Word, 365Kb)
Licensed Premises
This safeguarding children policy is for all staff (paid or unpaid) involved in premises which have been licensed under The Licensing Act 2003. This policy will give some basic information about what to do if you are concerned about a child and how your local children’s social care and Metropolitan Police Team will respond to and deal with reports about children whose welfare is causing concern. This guidance should be read in conjunction with the The Licensing Act 2003 (external link).
Sexually Active Children
This procedure is designed to assist professionals to identify where children and young people’s sexual relationships may be abusive and the children and young people may need the provision of protection or additional services. For young people 13 years and over, this risk assessment will inform practitioners when to involve LA children’s social care and when a situation requires criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service.
Sexually Exploited Children
The sexual exploitation of children is child sexual abuse. The sexual exploitation of children defines a broader context of abuse than formal ‘prostitution’; the full spectrum of sexually exploitative situations includes children and young people exchanging sex for accommodation, food, gifts and drugs.
Children Affected by Adults Viewing Sexual Abuse Images Online
Trafficked Children
This procedure provides guidance to professionals and volunteers from all agencies in safeguarding children who are abused and neglected by adults who traffic them into and out of the UK in order to exploit them.
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