1.Keeping Children Safe

Each and every child in Scotland has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse and neglect.

Everyone has a role in protecting children from harm, abuse and neglect.

Most children in Scotland grow up safe, healthy, protected, loved and well cared for with their parents or carers in loving homes, but at times some children may need additional support and protection.

Child Protection is used to describe what action is taken to prevent harm to children and protect them from abuse and neglect.

It is the responsibility of parents, carers and public services to make sure children are safe and healthy and to support their wellbeing.  

If there are significant concerns about a child’s safety and concerns that they are not being kept safe and may be harmed, then child protection services need to act. They must work together and with children and their parents or carers to find ways to keep the child safe. 

There is national guidance that sets out everything that should be done by everyone who is responsible for keeping children safe as part of their job.  

The Scottish Government wants every child to grow up feeling loved, safe and respected. To do this, children’s wellbeing matters. To have wellbeing, children need to be safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included. 

An approach called Getting it Right for Every Child is in place for people in government and public services to make this happen. The goal is to work with families to ensure children and their parents or carers have the support they need when they need it. 

You and your family have a right to get this support.  

Each child and their family should have a contact person to ask for help when they need early support, advice, and access to services. This person may be called a child’s named person and they could be a health visitor or primary school head teacher.  There is no obligation on families to accept the offer of support from a named person; it may however, be the case that the named person may have separate responsibilities within their designated role (e.g. as a health visitor or teacher), regardless of whether the family choose to accept their support as a named person.

Each child and their family should be helped by support services working together with them. This means listening to the families, understanding what is happening, and planning with children and their parents or carers to put in place the support that they need.  

There should be a range of support available because what children and their families need is individual to them and what a child and their family needs can change over time. 

Sometimes even with extra support, things can get more difficult for families and where there are concerns about potential abuse, neglect or serious harm, the police and social work in the local authority should be told about these concerns. If there is a child protection concern, there will be a lead professional who will be a social worker who works in children and families’ services in the local authority. 

All parents may need support. Where there are risks to the safety of a child, the support will be the most intensive. When there is a child protection concern, a plan of action to keep a child safe may be needed. 

This plan is called a Child Protection Plan. The plan of actions should involve the child and their parents or carers as much as possible. It may mean that extra support is given to the family, such as counselling or support services for parents or carers experiencing difficulties such as mental health or substance misuse, or it might mean that extra support such as visits from police and social work staff is needed. All of this should be done quickly to make sure the child and their parents or carers get the right help they need at the right time, and this will be reviewed often to see how this is working.

Intensive support should only be in place when risks and needs are high. This should change as the situation for the child improves.

Effective child protection means: 

• • it is everyone’s role to help keep children safe
  • families should be supported in every way possible to stay together 
  • a child has the right to live with their family if this is a safe place
  • child protection should be explained clearly and honestly to children and their families
  • services work together with families to keep children safe
  • children’s voices are listened to and taken seriously
  • the child’s circumstances, needs and wishes need to be fully considered
  • children and families are as fully involved in meetings and decisions as possible
  • relevant information should be shared where needed to protect children, provided that it is necessary, proportionate and lawful to do so
  • this information should be kept safe in accordance with the law
  • children and families should be informed of their rights including their right to complain if they feel they have not been treated fairly