Safeguarding and Protecting Children in the Early Years

Steven Burton, James Reid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317195542
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This new edition provides a comprehensive guide for safeguarding and child protection in the early years. Aimed at both students and practitioners, it offers clear insight and guidance into the legal and policy foundations for effective safeguarding practice, together with both the historical context and also more contemporary developments in safeguarding practice in the early years sector.

This second edition has been fully updated to reflect current legislation and includes new material on interagency work, supporting children's resilience and safeguarding all children. Drawing on the everyday dilemmas and experiences of early years professionals, it helps you to find solutions to both practical and moral issues in a context of legal duties and responsibilities. The chapters consider:

• the historical context of safeguarding and child protection
• the legislative framework around safeguarding and child protection
• safeguarding through inter-professional and multidisciplinary work
• the identification of neglect in early years children
• the consequential abuse that can occur as a result of parental behaviours
• safeguarding children's health and wellbeing
• safeguarding as a member of a team, and the importance of communication
• safeguarding against the misuse of technology.

Safeguarding and Protecting Children in the Early Years has been written by a multidisciplinary team of academics from a breadth of UK universities, with a wealth of experience in safeguarding and child protection, the EYFS, health visiting, social work, the police and in leading and managing services for children and families. This second edition is essential reading for anyone working with or aspiring to work with children in the early years.

CHAPTER

1

Introduction

Steven Burton and James Reid

While considering how to introduce this second edition, our minds cast to the same thought processes experienced while writing the conclusion to the first edition. At that time, in February 2013, Burton made a reference in the book’s conclusion to a couple in Birmingham who had been arrested on suspicion of the murder of a young boy. Details at the time of the boy’s death were obviously scant, but we now know that the boy was in fact Levi-Blu Cassin, a 22 month old who died as a result of traumatic abdominal injuries: in fact, it was speculated by medical professionals at the trial of his parents that he had been stamped on with such ferocity that his small intestine was split. According to the post-mortem examination, these were not the first traumatic abdominal injuries that the little boy had suffered (Solihull LSCB, 2015). Between the time of Levi-Blu’s death and the writing of this introduction in autumn 2016, his parents had been convicted not of murder, but of causing or allowing the death of a child. Levi-Blu was cremated, more than two years after his death, following an acrimonious and public legal battle between his incarcerated mother and her family.

We bring up this particular case to attempt to demonstrate a point in relation to safeguarding and child protection. We, and the other contributors to this text, teach in the areas of Early Years, Childhood Studies, Education Studies and Health Studies, and we teach passionate, intelligent, articulate students of these fields at both Honours and Masters degree levels. However, if one conducts a quick poll of students in class when we are discussing safeguarding or child protection, typically these intelligent and articulate students can only identify a small number of such cases.

Test yourself now: Which cases can you call to mind?

Anecdotally, the cases of Victoria Climbié, Baby P (Peter Connelly), Daniel Pelka and Khyra Ishaq are those that appear most easily recalled by our students. However, even when teaching this subject since 2013, the name of Levi-Blu Cassin is not often heard, despite the horrific injuries that he suffered. Likewise, child victims such as Kandyce Downer, Ayeeshia Smith and Daniel Jones, to name but three, are seldom raised in the public conscience. In fact, there were 75 child homicides in the United Kingdom in 2014/15 (NSPCC, 2016) – actually, a reduction over recent years – but the lack of public conscience and attention, to our minds at least, is staggering.

Chillingly, the most recent statistics made available by the NSPCC tell us that in 2014/15, over 620,000 children were referred to UK social services, and that at the end of this period there were approximately 220,000 children determined to be ‘in need’ due to abuse or neglect (this accounts for approximately 50 per cent of the total number of ‘children in need’), and around 57,000 children were subject to a Child Protection Plan (NSPCC, 2016). These frightening statistics underscore a 24 per cent increase in the number of children in the child protection system in the last five years (2016: 55).

This brings us to the distinction between the terms ‘child protection,’ and ‘safeguarding’. As demonstrated above, child protection refers reactively to the protection of identified children, who have specific concerns from which they need directed protection. Safeguarding, conversely, refers proactively to all the children that we encounter, and to our shared responsibility as both adults and as professionals to defend the wellbeing of all vulnerable children. The Department for Education supports this dichotomy by stating that safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as

protecting children from maltreatment;

preventing impairment of children’s health or development;

ensuring children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;

taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

(DfE, 2015: 5)

Here, the DfE clearly locate child protection within context of safeguarding. Reid, writing in his introduction to the first edition of this text, suggested that child protection is

a specific professional activity undertaken with children who are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. That is, all childcare professionals continue to have responsibilities and duties to safeguard children but it is social workers in particular whose duties extend to child protection.

Our book continues in its attempt to introduce the reader to both spheres, and is again divided into two parts. Part one provides an updated overview of the contemporary context for child protection, with a focus on a number of key areas of child protection and safeguarding. It includes consideration of the history of child abuse, and provides a vital appreciation of the socially constructed nature of safeguarding and of child abuse.

Part two develops the overview from the macro contemporary knowledge for child protection that is relevant to all childcare practitioners to focus explicitly on the early years context, and specifically on those everyday issues that confront staff. Importantly, the chapters draw upon early years workers’ real experiences in practice and reveal some of the ‘grey’ areas that frustrate and confront them.

The role and responsibilities of early years practitioners, professionals and teachers

To promote simplicity in this text, we shall refer hereafter to staff working with children in the early years as practitioners. That said, we are of course including within this arena the countless professionals who care for and educate our children in the early years: the childminders, Children’s Centre staff, day nursery practitioners, EYPs, EYTs and others who have a direct and very visible responsibility to the safeguarding of early years children. This book aims to help early years practitioners to understand their roles and responsibilities in keeping children safe from harm. This is particularly necessary for those practitioners who are perhaps recently qualified or still have yet to qualify, or who are inexperienced or daunted by the thought of safeguarding and child protection. However, the content of this book is constructed in the knowledge that practitioners are not a homogeneous group, and it is written with all early years practitioners in mind.

As we have already pointed out, safeguarding and child protection are not fixed concepts, and successive governments seek to improve and to enhance the structures and policies already in place. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Children Act 1989, the Children Act 2004 and the current Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government, 2015) guidance provides the statutory basis for child protection in England and Wales; similar legislation exists in the other devolved regions of the United Kingdom. All early years practitioners have moral and legal duties and responsibilities to ensure the protection of children. It is essential, therefore, that practitioners, whatever their status, experience or knowledge, keep up to date with policy and legal developments. Whereas child protection relates to those children who are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, safeguarding applies to all children and encompasses the need to protect all children from maltreatment, to prevent impairment of their health or development and to ensure that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care. Safeguarding is therefore a core element of the content of all government policy and guidance relating to children and their families.

The government is clear that early help and intervention are crucial in supporting children and their families. This means that early years practitioners need to be clear in how they can best support child development, including through safeguarding and protection, so that children reach school age ready to take advantage of all the opportunities available to them. In paragraph 4.1 of her review, Tickell wrote that

Children learn and develop best when they are safe, happy and healthy. For all those working with young children, safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and must be their first and foremost consideration. Regardless of their level or experience within the workforce, everyone working with young children must know how and when to raise any concerns. They must be aware of the warning signs and alert to acting on any concerns.

(2011: 37; emphasis added)

Working to protect, safeguard and promote the welfare of children is not optional; it is a core duty and responsibility of the early years practitioner. However, child protection and safeguarding is much more than a cerebral activity; it also involves emotions and deep-seated feelings, and perhaps even includes our own prejudices! It is important, therefore, that early years practitioners are also aware of the need to safeguard themselves. Much of this need could be met in effective supervision. Tickell (2011: 46–47) recognises that supervision is an opportunity for early years practitioners ‘to receive support to help them deal with difficult or challenging situations at work’. Although Tickell overemphasises the management function of supervision, a good practitioner will also use supervision effectively to learn and develop more broadly. It is in recognition of the importance of supervision as a professional obligation that the final chapter of the book focuses on this activity.

Our approach

This book is an essential text for all early years students and practitioners, as it provides an overview of developments in early years and safeguarding practice, and, importantly, considers some of the grey areas experienced by practitioners, such as the power relations in early years practice, either between young, inexperienced staff and more senior staff, or in the unconditional regard children have for staff, and therefore the power of the practitioner in children’s lives. Drawing on the everyday experiences and dilemmas of early years professionals in seeking to safeguard and protect young children, the book focuses on helping them to seek solutions to both practical and moral issues in a context of legal duties and responsibilities. The book is written by authors with close connections to early years practice and with a wealth of experience, including in safeguarding and child protection, the Early Years Foundation Stage, health visiting, social work, the police and in leading and managing services. The authors are able therefore to draw upon their own contemporary professional experience in constructing chapters that are relevant to the early years sector.

However, this rich mix of experience and knowledge goes beyond the contemporary legislative and policy context to offer meaningful and practical insight into the issues faced by practitioners on a day-to-day basis. Content deals with issues on both the macro and the micro levels. For example, ‘Safeguarding children from online danger’ explores the potential for harm that can come from the improper or illegal use of technology around children (macro), whereas ‘The primacy of communication in safeguarding’ highlights some of the issues in face-to-face communication with children (micro). Similarly, ‘Safeguarding children’s health and wellbeing’ highlights the macro interface between parental responsibility and state accountability and makes the direct links between social exclusion, poverty and ill health and the need for early help and intervention. The chapter then moves forward to offer practical tips on implementing policy by suggesting a role for parenting education classes.

Thus, this book is focused on the real experiences of practitioners, not just on safeguarding and child protection as an academic subject for study. The book deals with the gaps in the understanding of policy and guidance and the grey areas of practice that hinder or confound good practice. For example, if a member of staff loses their temper with young children, is this a safeguarding issue? In this regard, it is also important to explore how practitioners feel about safeguarding and managing their own feelings.

The guidance relating to child protection and safeguarding is vast. It includes a good deal that relates to children in specific circumstances, some of which, such as parental mental health problems, substance misuse and domestic violence, parental learning disability and the misuse of ICT, are discussed in this book. There are many other areas of concern, including female genital mutilation, fabricated or induced illness and abuse linked to spiritual or religious beliefs, for which you are advised to access the procedures (usually available online) of your Local Safeguarding Children Board. This is important, since cultural or religious practices may be used to defend certain actions that harm children. Female genital mutilation, for example, has no religious or cultural defence, and indeed is a criminal offence in the United Kingdom – a reminder that UK law and policy have precedence in all safeguarding or child protection concerns in that country.

We need to be aware also that children can be harmed because of their ethnic background. While racism is not a category of child abuse, it can cause significant harm. Children and families from black and minority ethnic groups are likely to have experienced harassment and racial discrimination, but we must not assume that their experience is common. Attention should be paid to the needs o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• Part 1: Legal and policy foundations, and key safeguarding concerns
• Part 2: Everyday practice dilemmas and experiences
• References
• Index