Children

The following information applies equally to working with vulnerable adults.

Working with children

The key issues when working with children are to ensure that their safety and wellbeing is paramount, physically, mentally and emotionally. You will need to have stringent recruitment procedures for anyone likely to be working with children, good procedures and practices for day to day working and, preferably, a child protection policy. You should also encourage openness and communication with parents/carers.

What is a child?

For the purposes of the law, a child is under 18.

Take a positive approach

A positive approach towards working with children involves:

Ensuring freedom from harm for all children irrespective of their age, gender, race, ability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs
Treating children with dignity and respect and helping children to have positive experiences through encouragement and constructive reinforcement of boundaries, not through abuse, anger, bullying or negativity

Good procedures, a responsible member of staff and a children's policy

Clearly, you will need excellent recruitment, induction and monitoring processes (see below), but equally important are how exemplary your procedures are. There are lots of pieces of legislation that affect working with children and a number of really excellent guidelines, which whilst not mandatory, are very worthwhile following. Being proactive in keeping children safe and well, and creating a positive environment for them isn't just a legal requirement, it will significantly benefit your business. It creates a quality customer experience (for both your child customers and the adults who foot the bill!) and inspires confidence.

You should appoint someone in your organisation to be the Child Protection Officer for your business. This may seem rather formal, but as well as making sure there is someone whose role it is to stay abreast of legislation and guidelines, you will also need someone to create good policies, arrange training, improve practices, deal with problems and be a central point of communication on all child issues. As with health and safety, the person responsible should be allowed plenty of time to ensure they are familiar with the laws and regulations relating to children and to help your business follow them.

It is also good practice to have a Children's Policy which sets out your ethics, your approach, your policies and some of your key good practice. For more information on developing a policy visit these pages at the Child Protection in Sport site. Although the resources and sample policies are aimed at sports clubs and organisations, it is easy to see how these can be adapted for any business type.

Recruitment

You need to be extra careful when recruiting for roles that have contact with children (or vulnerable adults), and your recruitment and selection process should be suitably rigorous:

All applicants should use an application form and you should design it so that the form elicits information about the applicants past, previous jobs, qualifications, experience, interests and a self-disclosure about any criminal record.
You should short list applicants and take two personal referees including, unless this is the applicant's first job with children, at least one regarding previous work with children. Follow these references up in writing and by phone. Also check qualifications and any training or membership as far as possible.
You must request a CRB check for at least your chosen applicant, go to www.crb.org.uk for information on how to do this.
You must ensure you have taken evidence of identity, preferably with a photograph, like a passport or driving licence.

Interview and induction

At the interview, make sure you pursue the applicant's qualifications and experience. Use open questions, suggested scenarios and even role play to explore their approach to children and investigate their responses in different circumstances. If they have worked with children before they should have good awareness of the Child Protection Practices outlined below.

After you have appointed an employee, subject to successful checks and references, you should ensure your induction process includes your ethics and culture towards children, your child protection policy and your day to day practices.

Training

If your business involves working with children you and your staff must have appropriate training and a good understanding of the issues involved. Training will help you develop policies and procedures, give you confidence that you are meeting legislation and will maximise your contribution to keeping children safe. In turn, all of this will help you create a really positive, quality customer experience.

There are training workshops, courses and events on working with children and child protection, and there are resources and guides that you can use in house.

Use the further information links below for more information and advice.

A duty to report

All of us in society have a duty to report upon and act upon any suspicions we have of abuse or any kind. If you work with children you have an additional responsibility to do so. Abuse of children can be physical, sexual, mental or emotional. From time to time you or your staff may have cause for concern. You may be worried that abuse is happening outside your business or inside your business. You should never ignore these concerns. You should act quickly. In the first place discuss them with whoever you have appointed as the child protection officer in your business and seek further advice or guidance form local children's services or the NSPCC Helpline. If your concerns persist contact Social Services. Social Services are the authority to whom you should report any suspicions of abuse and any allegations of abuse made against you or your staff.

Allegations reported to you or against you

You must not ignore allegations made to you, or your staff, or about you or your staff. Exactly the same duty to report applies, no matter how much time may have elapsed since the alleged abuse. If it is possible, without distressing the child, you should try to get further details of when, where, who and under what circumstances it took place, so that you can pass these on to Social Services, but your first concern should always be the welfare of the child, so don't press this. You should act quickly, and if you can take steps to ensure the child is safe in the immediate term, then do so.

Examples of good and bad practice

Having good day to day practices, as well as making sure you conform to legislation, helps to develop a quality business offering a positive environment for child and adult customer. The following are examples of good practices and of those to be minimised or avoided. See the further information and guidance at the end, for more advice.

General practices

Always work in an open environment - avoid private or unobserved situations and encourage open communication with no secrets.
Have clear policies about parents/carers dropping children off or collecting them. You should always know who is collecting a child, when they are collecting them and have emergency contact details for parents/carers at all times.
Treat all children equally, and with respect and dignity. Encourage balanced relationships which allow children to effectively communicate and participate on an equal basis. Give enthusiastic and constructive feedback rather than negative criticism. Make activities/learning fun and enjoyable and promote consideration for others.
Involve parents and carers as much as possible, both verbally and also by encouraging them to participate, observe or accompany their children. (Remember though, that you have responsibility for all the children in your care, just because a parent is not a member of staff does not mean they can be left alone with children (other than their own) or are exempt from any other child protection practices).
Keep to the correct adult to children ratios and try never to have less than two staff available at all times - avoid being alone with a child wherever possible.
Avoid touching children unless this is necessary for the activity and then only do it in accordance with your organisation's or business' guidelines and with the full consent of the children and their carers.
If your business involves children changing or washing ensure that:
- you have separate changing/washing facilities or times for boys and girls and that staff do not use the same facilities at the same time as children for washing or changing,
- if children must be supervised whilst washing or changing that at least two members of staff, parents, volunteers etc are present at the same time.
If you have to help a child (because they are young or have a disability), especially with personal tasks you should only help them with the things they cannot do for themselves, and only with the permission of both the child and their parents/carers. Check (before you accept the child) that you and your staff have the skills and training in place to help appropriately. Avoid doing things you are not trained for.
Secure parental consent in writing to act in loco parentis, if the need arises to administer emergency first aid and/or other medical treatment.
If you need to transport children ensure you have consent, appropriate vehicles, adequate insurance and ensure that children are in the back of vehicles and in proper child seats, where this is necessary according to age. You should also make sure that you have at least two adults present.
Discipline should only be used with the clear intention of teaching or reinforcing appropriate behaviour. It should be in order to: develop a sense of responsibility for behaviour; develop respect for others and their property; reinforce the rules or values of what you are doing; reinforce positive behaviour or attitudes.
Keep a written record of any injury that occurs, along with the details of any treatment given.

Practices to be avoided
The following should be avoided except in emergencies:

Avoid spending time alone with children away from others
Avoid taking or dropping off a child to an event or activity alone

Practices never to be sanctioned
The following should never be sanctioned. You, your staff, volunteers or accompanying parents should never:

Engage in rough, physical or sexually provocative games, including horseplay
Share a room with a child (unless it's just their own child/children in the room)
Allow or engage in any form of inappropriate touching
Allow children to use inappropriate language unchallenged
Make sexually suggestive comments to a child, even in fun
Reduce a child to tears as a form of control
Fail to act upon and record any allegations made by a child
Do things of a personal nature for children or disabled adults, that they can do for themselves
Invite or allow children to stay at your/their home unsupervised

A note about photographs and video

The concerns around photographing children are:

That inappropriate photographs of children will be taken (under the cover of photographing genuinely innocent activities like swimming or playing on the beach)
That photographs will be published together with information about the child such as name, age, interest and that this will be used against the child for 'grooming'

The NSPCC publish useful guidelines on taking and publishing images of children. The main guidelines are:

Ensure you have the child's and the parent's permission for taking images
Take and use only the images you really need
Avoiding publishing the images together with identifying text, eg names, ages, interest
Be aware, during the course of day to day activities, of who is taking photographs and be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary or worrying
Have a clear procedure for reporting concerns to your child protection officer in-house and onwards as necessary

Useful resources and guidance

Below are some excellent downloads and resources.

Stopcheck: a step-by-step guide for organisations to safeguard children (PDF, 326KB)
This is a short and very useful, free guide. It is an excellent introduction to the issues around working with children.

Keeping children safe: a toolkit for child protection Keeping Children Safe Coalition
Excellent downloadable resources for identifying the requirements, implementing them and training.

The Protection of Children Act 1999: A Practical Guide to The Act for all Organisations Working with Children The guide is produced by the NSPCC.

Using photographs and images of children on websites and other publications
This links to the NSPCCs advice on photographing and using photographs of children.

Criminal Records Bureau England and Wales PO Box 110, Liverpool L693EF Helpline: 0870 90 90 811

Wave power. Child welfare in swimming: procedures and guidelines (PDF)
A pdf from the Amateur Swimming Association - as well as the guidelines it provides good examples of a policy, practices and ethics.

The Child Protection in Sport Unit A dedicated unit with excellent advice and resources for organisations involved with children and sport or activities. Much of the advice can easily be adapted for other business types.

Caring for young people and the vulnerable Home Office guidance for preventing the abuse of trust

Child Protection Awareness Programme (distance learning materials) Keeping Children Safe, Keeping Children Safe in Sport, Creating a Culture of Safety, Safer Recruitment

Safeguarding Children: Everybody's Business - video supported training pack, NSPCC (2002) tel: 020 7825 2775 email: infounit@nspcc.org.uk

Legislation

The Children Act 1989 (England and Wales) Legislation to ensure the welfare and developmental needs of children are met, including their need to be protected from harm.

The Children Act 2004 Legislation that puts into practice the proposals set out in the Green Paper Every Child Matters (2003).

Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 Provides a comprehensive definition of working with children. Refers to the responsibility of public bodies to prevent unsuitable people from working with children and provides criminal sanctions for those who breach the disqualification.

The Protection of Children Act 1999 Creates a framework operating across the different sectors that work with children to identify those considered unsuitable to work with children. Includes listing their names on the PoCA list and the (former) education List 99

The Police Act 1997 Changes the route by which employers can check whether a potential employee has committed criminal offences against children, or whether there is a reason for that person to be considered inappropriate to work with children. Contains provision to set up the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) for England and Wales.

The Data Protection Acts 1984 and 1998 Relate to the recording of information, including information about children. States that information must be obtained fairly and processed lawfully, and shared only in certain circumstances, and kept securely.

The Human Rights Act 1998 Sets out the rights of children to be protected by a series of Articles covering specific areas.

Sexual Offences Act 2003 Introduces a package of measures to give children the greatest possible protection from sexual abuse. It enacts and extends the abuse of a position of trust offences and creates a new offence to tackle both off line and online grooming.

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 Provides a legal framework and single approach for a Vetting and Barring scheme. Barring decisions will be taken by a new independent body: The Independent Barring Board (IBB).