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A legal anatomy of child abuse
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Legislation: Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) act 1998. What the legislation covers: The Child and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 0f 1988 strives to provide children with the necessary care and protection to maintain the Childs welfare and well-being. This legislation also recognizes that the primary means to ensure a Childs well-being is to provide long-term safety, nurturing and a stable environment (Legislation NSW). Allowing the child to freely experience a violent-free environment that allows the child to form own views (Legislation NSW). This Act also encourages early-intervention, the need to identify the risk of harm at an early stage and provide assistance and support before the situation becomes unsafe for the child (Farrell & Sheringham, 2010, p. 46). The Act recognizes the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities to be involved in decision making concerning the care of children and young people (Farrell & Sheringham, 2010). The Act also supports the rights of children, and the privacy of the child’s identity (Farrell & Sheringham, 2010). The impact on workplace practices: …show more content…
As it is your responsibility to maintain a safe environment for the child, it becomes your legal duty to become a mandatory reporter, if you feel the child is at risk of harm and neglect (Youth Action and Policy Association NSW). All staff members have a duty of care to provide the safety of children at all time while they are in the services care; there are serious consequences if you fail to report your findings to the Community services (Farrell & Sheringham,
Wilson, K. and Adrian J. L. (2007) The Child Protection Handbook: The Practitioner's Guide to Safeguarding Children. Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall
In this essay, I refer to the words Power and Duty. The word power in legal terms is the ability to do or act, which implies a choice. Duty is an obligation; something that law binds me to do. This essay is written in answer to a case study, which examines a situation, which focuses on the Children Act of 1989. This act was composed to protect the welfare of all children, whatever their circumstances and backgrounds.
...children, young people and their families can be both complex and difficult. Social work practice is one of the most challenging as it involves work with a diverse range of both professionals and service users. However, there is more that one single reason for this. As all professionals, agencies and parents continue to work together in various different cases, a variety of skills are required including: communication, preparation, intervention skills, assessment of significant harm, research of current legislation and decision making skills, all of which contribute to the complexities and difficulties of social work. It could be argued that these difficulties are highlighted most in many public cases of child abuse; moreover these cases can be seen to be changing social work practice, affecting the difficulties and complexities of working within this profession.
The grounds for making a supervision or care order can be found in in s.31 of The Children Act 1989. Before a supervision or care order can be made, there are four areas that must be established. The court must show that ‘the child concerned is suffering or likely to suffer, significant harm’. Under s.31(2)(b) it states that, ‘The harm, or likelihood of harm, is attributable to: (i) the care given to the child, or likely to be given to him if the order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give him; or (ii) the child’s being beyond parental control’. The last two criteria are that the making of the order would promote the welfare of the child, and it is better for the child than making no order at all. A care order was explained in Hunt’s major study on care proceedings as a “last resort” and should only be used if all other options have been explored .
reporting abuse this is deem a matter of confidentially and the child is placed within a
The UK’s nations, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have their own child protection system and laws to help protect children from abuse and neglect. They have a framework of legislation, guidance, and practice to identify children who are at risk from harm and to protect them and act in preventing further abuse.
The main points of the children’s act 1989 are parental responsibility and the welfare of the child. Children are best cared for within their own families. The act states that the mental and physical wellbeing of the child is important. Professionals and parents/carers must work together to ensure the safety of the child. Local authorities have a duty to look into situations where they suspect a child or young person to be suffering from significant harm. Duties get allocated to local authorities, and other agencies to ensure that all children are safeguarded. The children’s act 2004 reinforces that all organisations that work with children and young people must help to safeguard
There are a number of legislations which address the needs of young people leaving care with provisions that are in place to help them through life transitions. The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 focuses on older young people and those who are leaving care. Providing the necessary legislative support to improve the care system in England. Ensuring that stability and continuity in every aspect of a child's care. This act proposed to reform the statutory framework for the care system involving children and young people as much as possible regarding decision making, giving them a voice so that they are heard. Resulting in the improvement of care standards.
Parton, N., Thorpe, D. and Wattam, C. (1997) Child Protection Risk and Moral Order, London: Macmillan
It reflects the legal orientation on parental responsibilities. It is an expectation that both parents will be involved in the important decisions regarding the child. Also parental responsibilities extend to a consideration of the primary and additional factors discussed earlier when deciding what is in child’s best interest. In 2011 the Family Law Legislation (Family Violence and other Measures) Act 2011 (Cth) was passed. This act protects the safety of children in parenting matters and changed the definitions of ‘abuse’ and ‘family violence’ to better capture harmful behaviour. This act also strengthened advisers’ obligations by requiring family consultants, family counsellors, family dispute resolution practitioners and legal practitioners to prioritise the safety of children, ensure the courts have better access to evidence of abuse and family violence by improving reporting requirements, and make it easier for State and Territory child protection authorities to participate in family law proceedings where appropriate. Parenting Orders are covered in the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth). There are four parts of the parenting
To understand child protection in regards to safeguarding children and young people a number of factors need to be considered. It is the responsibility of all service providers, educational and health services that work with children and young people in schools where teaching staff have daily contact or external service providers and professionals who come into contact with them on a regular basis to abide by their duty of care by taking reasonable measures to ensure they protect them from any form of harm, abuse or neglect.
Upon further reflection, Aboriginal children will have an adverse and disproportionate impact by the recent Child Protection reform of the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Permanent Care and Other Matters) Act 2014 (Cth). In Victoria, Aboriginal children are 12.9 times more likely to be on care and protection orders and 12.3 times more likely to be in out-of-home care in comparison with non-Aboriginal children. The Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service Victoria (FVPLS) state that the rate of Aboriginal child removal is now higher than at any time since white settlement (FVPLS, 2016). In June 2016, it was reported that appropriately 36 percent of all children in out of home care identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait
The SW explained about the Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015 guidance (HM Government). This is a guide that outlines how organisations and individuals, including SW’s should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and how practitioners should conduct the assessment of children. Crucial in the guidance is the focus on children’s needs which are paramount (para 6) and should be prioritised at the earliest opportunity to reduce risk and prevent a problem from escalating. (Holt,
Safeguarding children and young people is the responsibility of all professionals within a school and other organisations to work together and prevent the risk of abuse. Professionals need to take reasonable measures to make sure that children and young people are in a safe and healthy environment. There are many policies and procedures put into place that require schools to make sure that every professional working with children have relevant training and know the procedure to report a case of concern. Legislation also requires every professional to be DBS (disclosure and barring service) cleared before working within a school setting. This ensures that there is no criminal history and that the professional is safe to be around children. Safeguarding
In my view current child protection services are not sufficiently concentrating children in terms of their childhood development (Collings & Davies, 2008). A study conducted by Collings and Davies (2008) found that children in a vulnerable or disadvantaged position and children are the right-bearing individuals are the only two factors focusing by child protection workers in the process. There is little importance to children’s emotional attachment with family and various socio-economic factors affecting childhood development. A more complex and skilful practice approach is required to consider the multiple discourses around a child and develop more meaningful engagement with children and family in child protection practice (Collings & Davies,