Welfare and Safeguarding

Children spend a considerable amount of their lives in schools and early years settings and practitioners are some of the most important adults that they will come in contact with. The purpose of this module is to promote students’ and practitioners’ duty to keep children safe and protect them from harm.

This module aims to deepen students understanding and awareness of the issues which frame the welfare and safeguarding of children, and/or their families and carers. There will be an emphasis on why some procedures and structures fail and others succeed. This module will raise the level of debate about safeguarding children and the management of risk and it will explore ways in which children can be supported to safeguard themselves.

The main learning objectives will focus on developing student's knowledge and awareness of the safe and ethical implementation in practice of safeguarding policy and legislative frameworks to promote effective inter-agency and collaborative practice in the statutory and voluntary sectors in line with Working Together to Safeguard Children, (Department of Education, 2018) The Children Act, (HM Government, Department of Education, 2004).

Students will be expected to visit the Government and County Council websites to develop an up-to-date knowledge of both policies and the allocation of services. High profile media cases will be discussed and students will be encouraged to consider how these may have had an impact on the development of practice.