ABSTRACT
Safeguarding and child protection are first and foremost everyone’s responsibility: this includes children and young people themselves, their parents, their families and their communities. However, it is clearly also the remit of those whose professional lives bring them into contact with children. Ensuring children and young people are safe from harm is challenging work, but it can be incredibly rewarding to know that you have helped to protect a child from an abusive or neglectful situation. As a children and young people’s nurse or another practitioner working in the field of children and young people’s health care, you are ideally placed to recognize situations where children may be at risk of or suffering from harm. This is in part because of your skills in child health and development, but also because your experiences of diverse patterns of family life will help you to recognize when a child’s demeanour, behaviour or physical signs do not appear to fit within the spectrum of what might be considered ‘normal’. This chapter, which has been extensively revised and updated for the second edition of this book, aims to provide you with the knowledge, confidence and ability to successfully and proactively safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in line with your professional code of conduct and statutory and professional guidance (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 2014; Nursing and Midwifery Council 2015; HM Government 2015a).*
The chapter sets out how the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 1989 has influenced and supported the development of legislation, policy and guidance that keep the focus firmly on children’s best interests and their right to be safe and protected. It then provides some definitions of key terms, including what is meant by safeguarding, child protection, child maltreatment and significant harm. The challenges of measuring the prevalence of maltreatment are also discussed. The chapter next focuses on the principles for practice that help to maximize the nursing contribution to safeguarding and child protection within the multi-agency arena. There is an overview of the provision of assessment-based ‘early help’ that can promote children’s well-being and safety and diminish the risk of significant harm, followed by a brief review of the key categories of child maltreatment, including child sexual exploitation (CSE) and the importance of children and young people’s nurses better recognizing and responding to this form of child maltreatment. The case of Victoria Climbié is outlined as providing seminal learning that has cast long shadows forward in changing policy for children and improving practice.
