Safeguarding our Children
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of
children is everybody’s business.
It involves:
- 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
Child protection
Safeguarding children is also about child protection. This means
the variety of activities that take place to protect children who
may be at risk of significant harm due to emotional, physical or
sexual abuse or neglect.
If you are worried about a child and think that he or she may be
the victim of, or at risk from neglect, abuse or cruelty
- talk to a teacher, health visitor, doctor or youth worker, who
will give you advice about what to do next. Alternatively, you may
contact the police or your local children's social care office.
Find out how to do so here:
Worried about a child
Who is responsible for child safety?
Worcestershire County Council has a duty to ensure that every
child in Worcestershire is safe from harm and neglect and, where
possible, brought up by their own family. The council’s
Safeguarding and Services to Children and Young People has lead
responsibility for carrying out this duty.
Safeguarding children is a multi-agency concern co-ordinated by
the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children
Board (WSCB) , the local multi-agency partnership of education,
health, police, social care and associated services.
Information and advice
Follow the links below for advice and
information on safeguarding and child protection issues, including
the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Board and the work it
does.
Making a referral
The Local Authority has a duty to make enquiries where a child
may be suffering harm or neglect. If you feel you know that a child
may be at risk then you can let us know
here.
Changes to Safeguarding Services
As part of Worcestershire County Council's commitment to
becoming an excellent commissioning-based authority, Safeguarding
& Services to Children and Young People have started to apply
the commissioning process.
Commissioning means that across the organisation we need to
apply a consistent and joined up process to source the right
service from the right provider at the right price. Find out more
information on Worcestershire County
Council's Commissioning Approach.
Following the positive news that the service's Improvement
Notice had been lifted and in line with the aims set out in their
Social Care Workforce Strategy – Towards Excellence – 'Right
People, Right Skills, Right Time' a thorough needs assessment and
evaluation of the service has been undertaken.
Evaluation indicated that Safeguarding Services should go
through a full redesign in order to
ensure that resources are being used in the most effective and
efficient manner. This also ties in with the 'Better Outcomes'
aspect of the BOLD (Better Outcomes, Lean Delivery) strategy which
was introduced by the authority in 2009.
Through research it has been established that there are some
basic principles which need to be in place to lead to better
service delivery and outcomes for children in need:-
- Confident, stable workforce all trained in one evidence-based
model
- Sufficient qualified workers delivering directly to service
users
- Sufficient business support inc. admin & IT support
- Culture of learning and professional accountability
- Effective and good-quality supervision
- Streamlined management and decision-making accountability so
decisions are taken as close to contact with the service user as
possible
The public consultation into the
proposals for the redesign closed on 7 February 2013 and the
results are currently being evaluated. Further information on the
consultation results and plans for the redesign will be made
available here shortly.
This page was last reviewed 10 June 2013 at 10:25.
The page is next due for review 7 December 2014.