1.1 Outline current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.
Children Act 1989 is the framework for safeguarding and promoting children welfare.
The intention of the legislation is that children's welfare and developmental needs are met, including the need to be protected from harm. Key principles of the Act do reflect certain aspects of the UNCRC (United Nations Convention in the Rights of the Child); protection from harm, respect for a child's race, culture and ethnicity, parents’ responsibility for bringing up children and for the first time the duty to take account of a child’s wishes and feelings in decisions taken that affect them.
Child protection- section 47 of the act puts responsibility on the local authorities to investigate if a child is thought to be suffering or likely to suffer from significant harm.1
Children Act 2004
The Children Act 2004 was designed with guiding principles in mind for the care and support of children. Lord Laming report into tragic death of Victoria Climbie (A serious case of child abuse and neglect, where Victoria was being kept in her own urine and faeces for extended periods of time. Severely neglected and abused, Victoria was kept in her great-aunt’s bath, with her hands tied, treated inhumanly). “The food would be cold and would be given to her on a piece of plastic while she was tied up in the bath. She would eat it like a dog, pushing her face to the plate. Except, of course that a dog is not usually tied up in a plastic bag full of its excrement. To say that Kouao and Manning treated Victoria like a dog would be wholly unfair; she was treated worse than a dog.” (The Victoria Climbie Inquiry: report of an inquiry by Lord Laming).2
Lord Laming