Everyone shares responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, irrespective of individual roles. Nethertheless, in order that organisations and practioners collaborate effectively, it is vital that all partners who work with children- including local authorities, the police, the health service, the courts, professionals, the voluntary sector and individual members of local communities - are aware of and appriciate, the role that each of them play in this area.
All organisations must ensure they have in place safe recruitment policies and practices, including enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks for all staff, including agency staff, students and volunteers, working with children.
To fulfil their commitment to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people all organisations that provide services for children, parents or families or work with children, should have in place:
* Clear priorities for safegaurding and promoting the welfare of children explicitly stated in key policey documents and commissioning strategies.
* A clear commitment by senior management to the importance of safeguarding and promotingchildren's welfare through both the commissioning and the provision of services.
* A culture of listening to and engaging in dialogue with children - seeking their views in ways appropriate to their age and understanding, and taking account of those both in individual decisions and the establishment or development and improvement of services.
* A clear line of accountability and governance within and across organisations for the commissioning and provision of services designed to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.
* Recruitment and human resources management procedures and commissioning processes, including contractual arrangements, that take into account the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, including arrangements for appropriate checks on new staff and volunteers and adoption of best practice in the recruitmewnt of new staff and volunteers.
* A clear understanding of how to work together to help keep children and young people safe online by being adequately equipped to understand, identify and mitigate the risks of new technology.
* Procedures for dealing with allegations of abuse against members of staff and volunteers or, for commissioners, contractual arrangements with providers that ensure these procedures are in place.
* Arrangements to ensure that all staff undertake appropriate training to equip them to carry out their responsibilities effectively, and keep this up to date by refresher training at regualr intervals; and that all staff, including temporary staff and volunteers who work with children, are made aware of both the establishment's arrangements and their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
* Policies for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, including a child protection policey, effective complaints procedures and procedures that are in accordance with guidance from the local authority and locally agreed inter-agency procedures.
* Arrangements to work effectively with other organisations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, including arrangements for sharing information.
* Appropriate whistle blowing procedures and a culture that enables issues about safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children to be addressed.
This information has been taken from Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010.
