Our main current legislations and guidelines that apply within the uk .
The Children Act 1989 introduced changes to legislation in England and Wales to the welfare of children.
It points out that the welfare of children is the responsibiity of not only the parents but that of people that work with children to ensure their safety at all times.
The main aim of the act was to ensure a correct balance of not only protecting children but allowing parents to challenge state interventions. Partnerships between authorities and parents to be built to enable better communication between them.
The act also aimed to restructure frameworks of the courts where family proceedings are involved and to redifine parental responsibility. The act is an important
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All childrens records should be kept together and up to date so they can be accessed by all agencies involved.
It was recommended that there should be an independent childrens commisioner for England to protect children and young peoples rights and a children and families board.
Ofsted were also recommended to set a framework which would monitor childrens services.
The children Act 2004 made these recommendations become a legal requirement. As a result of this Every Child Matters framework was introduced to implement the act and the wider programme. Working together to safeguard children document was set up to show how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard children.
Statutory framework for EarlyYears Foundation stage 2008 sets out the standards for learning development and care for children 0-5. This provides help and support for children and parents in their early years so as they can achieve to their full potential.
The United Nations Convention on the rights of the child (1989)
This sets out the rights that all children should be treated equally. It shows what all children under the age of 18 should be entitled to.
Human rights such as civil, cultural,economic, social and
Wilson, K. and Adrian J. L. (2007) The Child Protection Handbook: The Practitioner's Guide to Safeguarding Children. Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 was established because an American boy was abducted form a Florida shopping mall and was later found murdered. The act was signed into law by George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. This act is established to protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime to prevent child abuse and child pornography to promote internet safety. This act is also known as the sex offender registration and notification act. It was established with the intention to strengthen laws related to child sexual predators. This law was instructed for each state and/or territory to apply criteria’s for posting offenders data on the internet.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) was implemented in England in 2008 and applies to all children aged 0-5. This new curriculum combined existing government ideas regarding the care of under 5s including the 'Every Child Matters' (ECM) policy: children's services have to respond to 5 outcomes for all children from birth to 18: being healthy, being protected from harm and neglect, being enabled to enjoy and achieve, making a positive contribution to society, and contributing to economic well-being. The statutory EYFS document stated a need for a 'coherent and flexible approach to care and learning' (DfES - Department for Education and Skills 2007; cited in Palaiologou, 2010, p.11 ), and ensures a quality experience for children regardless of the pre-school setting. EYFS and its direct predecessors were introduced based on the realisation that quality of teaching and management of schools play a central role in children's quality of learning, not socio-economic and educational background, as was previously thought. Pre-school education was seen as a method of helping children 'break the cycle of deprivation' (Baldock, 2009, p.20). However, research by Potter immediately prior to the inception of the EYFS concluded that due to 'insufficiently rigorous conceptual underpinnings, particularly in the area of language and communicatio...
Legislations are laws derived from current government policies and outlines rules and principles that everybody must follow. (Peteiro et al, 2017) There are multiple, current, legalisation that have been created in regards to the safeguarding of children and adults. The Data Protection Act of 1998, for instance, was created as a way to control how organisations use personal information. In a health and social care setting, the Data protection act ensures that personal information about individuals will be kept confidential and not misused. The act gives service users the right to determine how their personal data is used and who it is used by to prevent the risk of the information not being private and being put at risk for abuse. (Peteiro et al, 2017) This includes things such as date of birth, national insurance number and medical history. If certain personal information is not protected, then it puts the individual at risk of harm, or abuse. The Data Protection Act safeguards individuals against this. Similarly, The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 safeguards against children and adults by ensuring that only appropriate persons are allowed to work with certain groups. This act created the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) who deal with criminal record checks and overlooks the Barred Children’s and Barred Adult’s Lists of unsuitable
Throughout history, the government has been in charge of creating and regulating different types of laws. Many of the laws have been created to protect those who reside in that country and therefore are expected to be followed. However, not everyone believes that they should follow the law and in return decide to either ignore them or rebel against them. When members of society violate the simple law that has been set in place to protect those who do not possess the capability to protect themselves, it becomes a dangerous and horrendous tragedy. One of the most horrific laws that people violate is that of child abuse and neglect.
This essay will first address the statute used and interpretation of the threshold test by the courts, and then focus on cases involving vulnerable children to assess whether the statute in The Children Act 1989 is sufficient in protecting these children from harm. I will look at the argument in favour of the current approach taken by the courts, and the counter-argument in favour of changing the current approach. The arguments are delicately balanced and the law is always developing, so it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves this issue in future.
Tickell, C., 2011. The Early Years: Foundations for life, health and learning. An independent report on the Early Years Foundation Stage to Her Majesty’s Government. London: HMG
The legislation regarding safeguarding and chid protection ensures that all the children are safe, secure and protected from any kind of potential harm which may affect their health or development.
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.
Wells, Karen C.. "rescuing children and children's rights." Childhood in a global perspective. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009. 168-169. Print.
The Early Years Foundation Stage looks at six areas: Personal, social and emotional development, Communication, language and literacy, Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy, Knowledge and understanding of the world, Physical development and Creative development. Children are assessed at the end of their reception year and the teacher completes and early years profile which consists of thirteen different scales that link to the early learning goals from the areas of learning.
I was able to develop skills that will be relevant for practice in the future and support my professional development. This case study allowed me to focus on a specific case that developed my understanding of theory, law and policy that organisation use to provide services for families. I was able to enhance my understanding of the Cycle of change, Children Act 1989 and Working Together safeguarding policy. Developing my understating of evidence based practice and the importance of linking theory to
Ideological, social, political, and economic factors of a given period play key roles in developing and maintaining any social welfare policies in which the area of child welfare is not an exception. Throughout the history of child welfare legislation in Canada, Acts have been passed and modified according to the changing concept of childhood and to the varying degree of societal atmosphere of each period.
Commission for Social Care Inspection (2005) Making Every Child Matter, Commission for Social Care Inspection
Care and education have become a part of children’s daily lives in Ireland and England outside the home in childcare services. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the statutory curriculum framework for children up to the age of five in England. It was first introduced in 2008 and on the 1st of September 2012 a new revised document was published. Aistear, published in 2009, is Ireland’s first early year’s curriculum framework for children from birth to six years of age. A curriculum framework is a scaffold or support for the development of a curriculum that can be used in childcare settings. A curriculum framework can also be used in partnership with parents when developing a curriculum. This paper will compare and contrast these two curriculum frameworks in relation to philosophy, content, pedagogical practices and expected/targeted outcomes for children. Due to the limits of this paper, it will only be possible to develop an overview of the similarities and differences.