Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023- White Paper
Introduction
Safeguarding Children is a complex subject that many find hard to discuss. However, it is important to keep up to date with the everchanging guidelines and information available.
‘Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm’.
This statement covers a vast range of things including:
Preventing children from abuse and maltreatment.
Providing help and support to meet the needs of the children as soon as a problem emerges.
Preventing harm to children’s mental, physical health or development.
Ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care.
Taking action to enable all children and young people (under the age of 18) to have the best outcomes.
Promoting the upbringing of children with their birth parents or family network, where this is in the best interest of the child.
Safeguarding children is a complicated issue, and many children and young people suffer from abuse and harm especially when child protection protocols are not followed effectively which is why in 1999, the “Working Together” statutory guidance was first published to promote the welfare of children through the partnerships of all agencies and professionals involved. This was again revised in 2006 following the public inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié and has continued to be updated as more practice reviews continue to arise, and more lessons are learned as a consequence to these unfortunate and devastating events.
Working Together to Safeguard Children is statutory guidance that has been put in place by the government to outline how practitioners working with children, young people and families must work together effectively.
In December of 2023, the statutory guidance was updated once again to expand on the update published in 2018. It continues to place the role and responsibilities of this onto the 3 statutory partners who are, police, healthcare and children’s social care. But it is of now referencing schools and education providers as relevant agencies within this field.
In February 2024, there were some additional final amendments made: Page 26, paragraph 48: amended the wording used to describe lead safeguarding partners. Page 42: corrected the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel email address. Page 161: updated the glossary definition of 'safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children' to match that on page 7 to 8. Page 167: linked to the latest version of 'Good practice guidance on working with parents with a learning disability'.
Throughout this white paper we will cover the new updates included in this most recent published guidance and look into past practice reviews that may have worked out differently if such things were in place, then.
Did you know since 2022 there were 403,090 children classified as being in need of help and protection as a result of risks to their development and or health? But just under 51,000 children were on protection plans. This shows the increasing need to work together to protect the welfare and prevent any harm of children.
By the end of this white paper, you will understand the updates included in the latest publication of the working together statutory guidance and how it impacts all that are involved.
The Main Principles of Safeguarding Children
The 2023 update to Working Together to Safeguard Children highlights the introduction of 5 key new principles, with this they have also assured that from here on, there will be an annual review of the guidance to further promote the importance of safeguarding children.
Chapter 1 – Shared Responsibility
This chapter revolves around taking a ‘child centred approach’. It emphasises the important role multiagency partnerships play in the providing a positive outcome for children. It encourages the need for collaboration across the whole support system, including practitioners, agencies, parents, carers and families. There is a huge focus on the key principles of encouraging and nurturing positive relationships with parents, carers and families of the children in need. This helps to ensure they can provide the best and most tailored support for those involved in keeping the child/children safe.
Chapter 2 – Multi-Agency safeguarding
This chapter focuses on the significant improvements made to the safeguarding arrangements in local areas to help provide a stronger support system for the children in need of protection.
The new changes include:
Clarifying the roles and responsibilities of safeguarding partners and delegated safeguarding partners.
Introducing a partnership chair role.
Emphasising the role of education in safeguarding arrangements.
Strengthening accountability by clarifying expectations around information –sharing, independent scrutiny, funding and reporting.
Within this, agencies are also encouraged to see the importance of and consider naming and engaging, voluntary, charity, social enterprise and sports clubs in published local arrangements.
Chapter 3 – Help, Support and Protection
This section highlights how agencies and other organisations help, and protect children and families, focusing on the need for early intervention. Strengthening the talk around education, childcare settings support and safeguarding children, this includes identifying the risks and the child’s right to education. It also clarifies that a larger range of practitioners can take on a leading role in helping to support children and families.
The guidance discusses the different types of abuse and that it now includes online harm. It stresses that there are contextualised and additional risks beyond the family environment in social care assessments.
Chapter 4 – Organisational Responsibilities
Chapter 4 highlights the duty placed upon a range of organisations and agencies to ensure that their operations and any services that they delegate to others are carried out while prioritising the welfare of children.
Section 11 of this places a duty on:
Local authorities and district councils that provide children’s and other types of services. This includes children’s social care, public health, housing, sport, culture services, leisure services, youth services and licensing authorities.
NHS organisations and the independent sector. This includes NHS England, ICBs, NHS Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts and general practitioners.
Police. This includes Police and Crime Commissioners, the chief officer of each police force in England and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.
British Transport Police.
Probation Service.
Governors or directors of prisons and young offender institutions (YOIs).
Directors of secure training centres (STCs).
Youth offending teams (YOTs).
All such agencies should have and abide by arrangements that are made to ensure the welfare and protection of children.
Chapter 5 – Learning from serious child safeguarding incidents
Chapter 5 refers to the expectation of maintaining contact with care leavers after they turn 21 and encourages (non-mandatory) reporting of care leavers up to the age of 25. This is to allows for the enhancement of learning and helps improve outcomes for vulnerable groups of young people by ensuring continuous support even after they leave the care system.
The case of Victoria Climbié
The case of Victoria Climbié is a tragic example of systematic failures in child protection. Victoria was an 8-year-old girl, who on the 25th of February 2000, died in the Intensive Care Unit of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. She died because of months of torture at the hands of her great-aunt Marie-Therese Kouao and her great-aunt's boyfriend Carl Manning, who were her guardians and responsible for her wellbeing.
Victoria was subjected to starvation, physical abuse, and unsanitary living conditions. But despite signs of abuse and neglect Victoria’s abuse went unnoticed by multiple agencies and individuals that were responsible for her welfare.
Victoria’s tragic story led to an inquiry into her death and looked at what factors led to the failure to protect her from such abuse and trauma.
Key missed opportunities for intervention:
Social care – The local social service department Haringey Council, failed to conduct thorough assessments of Victoria’s living conditions. They visited her home on multiple occasions but did not thoroughly investigate the situation and missed signs of abuse and neglect.
Health Care Professionals – Victoria was admitted to hospital several times with suspicious injuries. However, doctors and nurses failed to recognise the signs and did not follow procedure to report the signs of abuse.
Police – The police had been involved several times due to reports of abuse, but they did not thoroughly investigate the case or communicate effectively with social services or healthcare professionals.
Education sector – Victoria was not enrolled and did not attend school. Educators missed the opportunity to be able to identify signs and report them.
Communications – Throughout Victoria’s tragic situation multiple agencies failed to communicate effectively with one another and recognise the increasing evidence of abuse and neglect.
Victoria’s tragic story sparked a huge change in child protection policies and practices in the UK. Encouraging organisations and agencies responsible for child welfare to improve the way they handle safeguarding and protecting children from harm.
To learn more about the Victorie Climbie inquiry click here.
The case of Peter Connelly, Baby P
The case of baby Peter is another example of systematic failure. In August of 2007, 17-month-old Peter Connelly was found dead in his cot after months of cruelty from his family who were responsible for his care.
Peter had been put onto a register before his birth due to his brothers already being on the register. Despite this Peter in his short life suffered over 50 injuries which eventually resulted in his death.
Social workers from Haringey Council, police and doctors, had seen Peter 60 times in an 8-month period, but failed to intervene and protect him from more harm.
An independent report was made into Peter’s death and a range of shortcomings were highlighted, these included:
Failure to identify that the children were in immediate risk of harm.
Failure to act on evidence, including the failure to speak to the children who were at risk.
Agencies failed to coordinate effectively to prevent any more harm coming to the children.
Failure to gather, record and share information effectively.
Poor child protection plans.
Failure to implement the recommendations that were presented in the Victoria Climbie’ inquiry.
Inadequate supervision from senior management.
This case caused widespread outrage across country and the media, especially being so soon after the Victoria Climbie’ review. The Baby P case led to appropriate action being taken by local authorities to improve the systems in place.
To find out more about the Baby P case you can follow this link.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the ‘Working Together’ statutory guidance is continuously growing and evolving to improve the knowledge around safeguarding children and the actions taken by the statutory partners and the relevant agencies to protect children and prevent them from harm. As referenced at the start of this paper, the government are encouraging a yearly review of the guidance to ensure that it covers all necessary areas and clarifies relevant people and information, that can affect the welfare of children.
As you can see from both the case of Victoria Climbie’ and Baby P, not noticing signs, or failing to communicate and work with other agencies and organisations involved can lead to children being in more harm and potentially result in their death.
640,430 requests for social services to be provided were made in the year to 31st March 2023. ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ highlights the continuous need to ensure that these requests are taken seriously and that all practitioners and statutory partners are working in co-ordination with each other to protect children and prevent harm from occurring.
Please find a list of relevant links below:
Working Together to Safeguard Children Statutory guidance link.
The NSPCC recent practice reviews link.
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