Hi,
I'm struggling with a few questions on my safeguarding unit and wondered if anyone with a bit more experience would be willing to read through my answers and see if I'm on the right track?? Any feedback, positive or negative would be appreciated
6. What factors need to be considered when ensuring children and young people are protected from harm in the work setting?
As adults with a responsibility for caring for children it is our responsibility to ensure that we take all possible steps to protect children and young people from harm whilst they are in our care. There are a number of factors to be considered when ensuring the protection of children and young people.
People: The staffing levels within a setting need to be considered ensuring that there are an appropriate number of qualified adults for the number of children present. The qualifications and levels of experience of the staff looking after pupils needs to be considered to ensure that they are appropriately qualified for the task. All staff need to be CRB checked to ensure they are safe an appropriate to work with children.
Risks: The risks of a particular situation need to be assessed. The hazards need to be identified and then assessed for the likelihood of that hazard to cause harm to pupils or adults.
Children: The ages, needs, abilities, gender and general behaviour of children should all be factored into assessing if a situation or activity is safe for children to participate in.
Activities: The length and complexity of a given activity needs to be considered, along with the environment in which the activity is taking place. For instance activities in the school setting are usually easier to control as it is contained within a familiar space, whereas activities off site require more planning to ensure that everyone is aware of safety procedures and that there is adequate supervision for the environment and activity.
7. Identify four policies/procedures that are used to protect children and young people and the adults who work with them.
There are a large number of policies and procedures in place in a school setting that are there to protect both the children/young people and the adults who work with them. All staff at a school should read and be aware of the relevant policies and procedures that are applicable and ensure that they are always followed.
Whistle Blowing: The local county council whistle blowing policy is in place to protect both adults and children in a child care setting. The policy exists so that concerns about a person’s behaviour or care around children can be raised without the fear of repercussions for the person raising the concern. This policy protects children as bad practice can be raised and dealt with in an appropriate manner, so that the person responsible for the bad practice can be brought to account and the bad practice halted. The policy protects adults in two ways. Firstly in protects the person raising the concern by ensuring that they are not discriminated against for raising a concern. Secondly, to an extent, it protects the person who is subject to investigation by ensuring that they get a fair hearing, chance to put across their side of the story and any evidence to support their case and also protects people from untrue allegations.
Risk Assessments: Risk assessments are in place for all activities within a school environment to ensure that all the relevant hazards have been evaluated along with the likelihood of that hazard causing harm. This protects both children and adults from harm as if the risk of harm or injury was too great then the activity would be deemed unsafe to take place.
Health and Safety: Health and safety policies exist within schools to ensure that the school is as safe as possible for both children/young people and the adults who work at the school. It details procedures, responsibilities and training requirements. From a basic perspective following health and safety guidance can be something as simple as ensuring that equipment is properly tidied away after completion of an activity, to reduce the risk of children or adults falling over the equipment and injuring themselves. Also encompassed in a health and safety policy are the procedures to follow in case or accidents/emergencies and how to report accidents.
Behaviour: Behaviour policies within schools are applicable to both adults and children and both parties need to ensure they follow the procedures. For children within a school setting it outlines how they should behave within the classroom towards their peers and adults, and also acceptable behaviour at play times to ensure that dangerous games are not being played. It reinforces the ethos of demonstrating respect for others and helps to build an environment in which pupils feel safe, secure and respected. Behaviour policies are also applicable to adults and detail what is expected from adults; demonstrate acceptable behaviour, equal treatment of all pupils, dealing with bullying incidents etc. The policy also protects adults from inappropriate behaviour by pupils.
8. Discuss four points of good practice to ensure a worker is working safely and protecting both themselves and the pupils.
Primarily adults working with children and young people can protect themselves by ensuring that they have read, understood and complied with all of the relevant policies and procedures in place within the setting. There are a number of ways of working that can aid the protection of adults and children:
Working in an open and transparent way:
Adult should always ensure that they are working in an open way around children and young people to ensure that you do not leave yourself open to any allegations of misconduct. Adults should ensure that they are not left alone with a child. If this is necessary in one-to-one working situations then adults should ensure that they are not in a closed room, leaving doors open so that they are within the sight or hearing of another adult. Adults should, where possible, try to ensure they are working in an open area of the school, so that they can be seen by other staff.
Adults should ensure that they explain to children why they are behaving in a particular way so that it is clear to the child what is being done and why.
Minimising physical contact:
Physical contact between adults and children is important in order to build a caring relationship. However in the case of children in the work setting this needs to be handled in the right way using judgement and common sense. As a general rule physical contact should be minimised, however there are occasions when this isn’t possible or when it would be unfair to the child. For example if a child has fallen over or is upset/distressed about a situation (especially with younger reception and year 1 children) then placing an arm around a child to offer them some comfort would be appropriate. If such a situation arises then adults should make sure that they are fully visible to other adults when any physical contact is necessary. Also some children show their affection for teachers and teaching assistants by cuddling, in which case adults should ensure they are receptive to this, but don’t initiate such contact themselves. At my setting teachers ensure that if they do receive cuddles from children that they are not alone with the child and they turn so the child cuddles them side on.
Obviously with some children with special educational needs there may be more need for physical contact when dealing with their personal care. Again school policies regarding this situation should be followed.
Listening to children/young people:
It’s important that we make time to listen to pupils concerns or worries and make ourselves approachable so that children/young people feel that they can talk to us about any worries that they have. Building positive relationships with children and young people enables them to feel secure talking to us and feel that their views and worries will be listened to and taken seriously.
Behaviour:
Adults working with children and young people should demonstrate appropriate behaviour, behaving the way they would expect pupils to behave and generally being a good role model. If we don’t behave appropriately then we cannot expect pupils to. We should remain consistent and approachable, dealing with all pupils equally.
Would anyone be able to sanity check my answers please??
Linear Mode
