Safeguarding and Welfare Requirement: Child Protection
Providers must have and implement a policy and procedures to safeguard children
Child Protection statement
The Early Learning Camp recognise statutory and moral responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in their care. Staff at The Early Learning Camp will undertake their duty to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued. Where staff are alert to the signs of abuse and neglect, follow procedures, and ensure that children receive effective support and protection.
Procedures: the policy applies to all staff, volunteers, and visitors to The Early Learning Camp, they are consistent with DfE statutory guidance (2022) and Warwickshire Safeguarding Partnership, locally agreed multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.
Principles: Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. To fulfil this responsibility effectively, all practitioners should make sure their approach is child centred, and is in the best interest of the child. (Keeping Children Safe in Education) KCSiE, DfE (2022). All practitioners regardless of their role are dutifully bound to protect all children in their care, professionally accountable for their action, and decision making in relation to keeping children safe.
The Early Learning Camp’s responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children is of paramount importance. All staff have an equal responsibility to act on any suspicion that may suggest a child is at risk of harm at home, or in Nursery.
Staff are uniquely placed to observe changes in children’s appearance, behaviour, or communication, outward signs of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and radicalisation. It is paramount that all staff are alert to the signs of abuse, are approachable, listen actively to children, and understand the procedures for reporting concerns.
All staff should maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. If concerned about the welfare of a child, staff members should always act in the interests of the child. All staff are professionally accountable, managing concerns, sharing swiftly, maintaining a ‘culture of vigilance’. Staff are aware of their responsibility, to ensure all children are supported in an environment of openness, trust, and transparency.
All Designated Safeguarding Leads should access training to ensure all staff are able to identify children that may benefit from Early Help. ‘Warwickshire’s Early Help Pathway to Change’ Early help is defined as, the right support at the right time, this will ensure that problems will not escalate, protecting the child from becoming vulnerable or in need. Early Help is an approach that is aimed to prevent recurrence of problems, offering all children and families across Warwickshire advice, guidance, and support as soon as a concern emerges or seems likely to emerge.
The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) should take the lead, consider the child’s needs, if a member of staff remains concerned about a child and use Warwickshire’s escalation process if needed, to make sure they are confident in the response to the child’s needs., they can discuss their concerns with the Nursery Manager, another DSL or contact the Children and Families Front Door for additional advice.
All child protection referrals should be made to the Children and Families Front Door by completing a MAC (Multi Agency Contact) form and submitting it to the Front Door at triagehub@warwickshire.gov.uk
The form can also be completed online. All urgent child protection referrals, i.e. where there is an immediate concern about a child’s safety should be made in the first instance by telephoning the Front Door on 01926 414144. This should be followed by submission of a MAC as above.
Safeguarding Legislation and Guidance:
The statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children DfE (2022) covers the legislative requirements and expectations of individual services (including schools and colleges and Early Years Settings) to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, to decide to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of local children including identifying and responding to their needs. All staff who work directly with children should read Annex B, and ‘What to do if you’re worried a child is being abused (2015)’ advice for practitioners is non- statutory advice which helps practitioners (everyone who works with children) to identify abuse and neglect and take appropriate action.
Contextual Safeguarding:
Safeguarding incidents and/or behaviours can be associated with factors both outside the child’s home/external environments and outside Nursery. The DSL, and all staff will consider the context within which such incidents and/or behaviours occur.
Contextual safeguarding means that assessments of children should consider wider environmental factors present in a child’s life that are a threat to their safety and/or welfare. Staff should listen to children and be vigilant about any signs or indicators that would suggest children may be at risk, share such information with multi-agency professionals to keep children safe. The Nursery will provide as much information as possible as part of an investigation allowing any assessment to consider the full context of any abuse.
Roles and responsibilities
The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) KCSiE (2022), Annex C
The Designated Safeguarding Lead should have the appropriate status and authority within the school, college and Early Years Setting to carry out the duties of the post. The role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead carries a significant level of responsibility, and they should be given the additional time, funding, training, resources and support they need to carry out the role effectively.
Their responsibilities include providing advice and support to staff on child welfare, safeguarding and child protection matters, taking part in strategic discussions and inter-agency meetings, and/or supporting other staff to do so, and contributing to the assessment of children.’ KCSiE (2022) Director/Owner should ensure an appropriate senior member of staff is appointed to the role of DSL.
The Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) role is a matter for individual settings as to whether they choose to have one or more deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads. Any activities of the DSL can be delegated to appropriately trained deputies, however, ultimately lead responsibility for child protection, as set out above, remains with the DSL, this lead responsibility should not be delegated.
The DSL should take lead responsibility for safeguarding and child protection (including online safety). This should be explicit in the DSL’s job description.
The DSL is expected to refer cases suspected abuse and neglect to the local authority Children’s Social Care and support staff who make referrals.
When a person is dismissed or left the organisation due to perpetrating a risk or harm to a child, where a crime is alleged to have been committed, a referral to the Police and the Disclosure and Barring Service, must be completed.
The Early Learning Camp - Key personnel
The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is:
Hannah Baxter – Nursery Manager – hannah@earlylearningcamp.com 02476 367070
The Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads:
Charlotte Porter – Deputy Manager – charlotte@earlylearningcamp.com 02476 367070
Natalie Thompson – (SENCO) – natalie@earlylearningcamp.com 02476 367070
Other Designated Safeguarding Lead team members:
Helen Slater - Director/Owner – helen@earlylearningcamp.com 02476 367070
Information Sharing and Managing the Child Protection files:
The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is responsible for ensuring that child protection files are kept up to date. Information should be kept confidential and stored securely. It is good practice to keep concerns and referrals in a separate child protection file for each child.
Records should include:
a clear and comprehensive summary of the concern.
details of how the concern was followed up and resolved.
a note of any action taken, decisions reached and the outcome.
All files should only be accessed by DSL’s or senior management team, all files should hold one or more emergency contact number for each child. When children leave Nursery, the DSL must ensure individual children’s files are transferred to the new setting/school within 5days or as soon as possible. Transit of files should be secure, and a confirmation receipt obtained. In addition to the child protection file, the DSL should also consider if it would be appropriate to share any additional information with the new setting/school in advance of a child leaving to help them ensure the right support to safeguard this child.
Training, knowledge, and skills:
The Designated Safeguarding Lead should maintain their knowledge, sharing training with all staff, this should be revisited every two years, although staff need to revisit training annually to refresh their knowledge at staff briefings/meetings.
The Early Learning Camp is dedicated to maintaining staff knowledge through accessing Warwickshire’s Integrated Training. Training will provide the DSL with a good understanding of their role, how to identify, understand and respond to specific needs that can increase the vulnerability of children and put children at risk.
The training will enhance DSL knowledge of processes, procedures and responsibilities of other agencies, particularly local authority Children’s Social Care. The training gives a clear understanding of the assessment process for Early Help and statutory intervention, have a working knowledge of how local authorities conduct a child protection case conference and a child protection review and ensure staff can attend and contribute to these effectively.
The training enables staff to be alert to the specific needs of children in need, those with special educational needs and disabilities (SENd), understanding the importance of information sharing, both within the Nursery and with other safeguarding partners, agencies, organisations, and practitioners, and recognise the additional risks that children with special educational needs and disabilities (SENd) face and obtain access to resources and attend any relevant training.
Holding and Sharing Information:
The DSL should be equipped to understand the importance of information sharing, relevant data protection legislation and regulations, especially the Data Protection Act (2018) and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR),be able to keep detailed, accurate, secure written records of concerns and referrals and understand the purpose of this record-keeping.