What is Safeguarding?

INTRO

What is safeguarding?  In this video we will go through what safeguarding is, why it’s so important and your legal responsibility as a nursery worker or childcare professional.

But first welcome to the channel.

INTRO VIDEO

Welcome to the channel open a nursery, where I teach you to open, run and grow your own childcare business.

If this is your first time here, get acquainted, I post regular videos helping you in your childcare career from helping you get to grips with the EYFS to finding out the costs involved with opening a nursery.

So, if you work in childcare or have ever had the dream of opening your own nursery then make sure you subscribe.

But, what is safeguarding?

Safeguarding essentially means: protecting children from abuse and maltreatment. preventing harm to children’s health or development. ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care and taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.

Every child has the right to flourish in safe environment away from harm and abuse.

As educational professionals, whether that be nursery workers, childminders, nannies or others,  we strive to keep our children safe and healthy and every nursery or setting should have a range of policies to support all staff to do this.

With that in mind I do have some policies and procedures around safeguarding that you can get off the website openanursery.co.uk and I will post a link to them in the description.

Setting up and following good safeguarding policies and procedures means children are safe from adults and other children who might pose a risk.

Child protection forms a key part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.

Children thrive in safe and secure environments where they are able to confidently express themselves. Safeguarding procedures and policies in the EYFS are the most reliable way of ensuring that children are safe and secure.

If you work in early years setting it is incredibly important that you comply with safeguarding measures to ensure the wellbeing of the children in your setting. In fact, Working Together to Safeguard Children (which I will link in the description) is a statutory document that EYFS professionals are required to read and understand.

So, if you haven’t read it already, make sure you do.

Safeguarding forms an important part of the EYFS.

Section 3 of the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework states that children learn best when:

• they are healthy, safe and secure
• their individual needs are met
• they have positive relationships with the adults caring for them.

The EYFS statutory framework also introduces four overarching principles, which states that:

• Children learn and develop best in an enabling environment
• Children are unique, learn constantly and can become resilient, capable, confident and self-assured
• Children learn and develop best in different ways and at different rates
• Children learn strength and independence from positive relationships.

The Early Years Foundation Stage, Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements state “providers must be alert to any issues for concern in the child’s life at home or elsewhere. Providers must have and implement a policy and procedures to safeguard children.”

As well as being a statutory requirement, parents want to know that their childcare provider provides a safe learning environment where their child will thrive.

There are three key principles of safeguarding that you should be aware of:

These principles underpin safeguarding to ensure the welfare and happiness of children, mainly thar:

• A child’s needs should be put first — always.
• Children should be offered help and support as early as possible, before issues escalate
• Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility and everyone at a setting should act in a timely and coordinated manner to respond to any concerns about the welfare of a child.

So, how do you protect children in your care?

Everyone who works with children needs to understand how to recognise the signs and symptoms that could indicate a child is being abused, and also know how to respond and make child protection referrals.

The government guidance in the documents Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) and What to do if you’re worried a child is being abused (2015) provides a national framework for all agencies working with children to join in partnership to safeguard our children effectively.

All childcare providers need to consider this guidance and implement robust safeguarding policies and procedures for their setting, which outline how to respond to and record concerns about children and vulnerable adults.

All providers should ensure their policies align with the safeguarding policies of their local children’s safeguarding board which can include working with them to create or update your policies.

As an owner or manager of a nursery or setting, you need to make sure all staff and volunteers understand and can implement any policies and procedures you have created.

Each setting is required, under the EYFS, to have a designated person who is to take the lead with regard to safeguarding and handling safeguarding issues for the setting.  This designated person must be trained in child protection but all childcare professionals must be trained to understand their safeguarding policy and procedures and have up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding issues.

As a practitioner or volunteer, you need to be alert to the signs and symptoms of abuse, know how to report safeguarding concerns, and how to escalate your concerns if necessary.

It is your responsibility to ensure concerns are raised and responded to appropriately. Don’t be afraid to take things further if you are not satisfied with an outcome.

For example, if you raise a concern to your nursery or settings safeguarding lead you and you feel they are not handling it appropriately you can then take the issue to your local safeguarding children’s board or partner

Though, please note if you have any immediate concern for a child’s safety or wellbeing then you would simply contact the police.

Promoting health and well-being and regular risk assessments also play an important part in safeguarding children.

Along with safer recruitment, which refers to a set of practices to help make sure your staff and volunteers are suitable to work with children and young people. It’s a vital part of creating a safe and positive environment and making a commitment to keep children safe from harm.

Two key aspects of safer recruitment is ensuring that all staff have an up-to-date DBS. The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) was created to help prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children.

It is a measure put in place to ensure any person working or volunteering on behalf of an organisation with children has no record of previous harm or risk.

Though, it is important to note that the DBS does not check records from abroad, so extra checks should be done in this circumstance.

As well as getting a DBS for each staff, all staff should supply two substantive references, that gives information showing that the candidate is not a safeguarding risk.

This recruitment process should be highlighted in your safer recruitment policy or safeguarding policy.

But, that’s safeguarding in a nut-shell.  It involves keeping our children safe from abuse and maltreatment and is one of our most important roles as childcare professionals.

If you have any questions around safeguarding do put them in the comments.

And as mentioned creating policies around safeguarding is imperative, you have to do it. 

So, if you want robust safeguarding policies and procedures then check out the link in the description where you can download some for your nursery.

Though, I hope you’ve enjoyed the video if you have please hit that like button.  Youtube thinks you’ll find this video useful so check it out.  And it you enjoy my videos then make sure to subscribe I post regular videos all around the topic of childcare.  So I’ll see you on the next video, God Bless.