Safeguarding and the voice of the child or young person.
Welcome to our fourth blog post in the series of posts on the voice of the child. This week we are talking about safeguarding and the voice of the child or young person. In our second blog post we talked about the importance of listening to the voice of the child in early years settings, which included when we listen to the voice of the child, we empower them in decision-making. This is equally as true and important when it comes to dealing with safeguarding children and young people. CQC (2022) defines safeguarding as:
‘…protecting a person’s health, wellbeing, and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect’
We are talking directly about protecting our children and young people’s rights, health and well-being; it is only right that we involve them in decisions relating to them. The United Convention on Rights of the Child, states clearly that the voice of the child should be heard and listened to. That we should seek to have the voice of the child at the centre of effective safeguarding practices. Now, we know in reality that this can be challenging to, which is echoed in the recent paper from the NSPCC in 2024 on the voice of the child and lessons learnt from serious case review. This paper shares that in reality the voice of the child can be unheard, this may be the result of a few things such as lack of engagement, visits, relationship building, high caseloads or lack of resources.
Here is the thing, and I am often heard saying this, “we are all responsible for safeguarding!”. And form part of a multi-agency approach, that creates a team around the family. Although, I appreciate we may not be trained social workers reading this blog posts, we might be teachers, early years practitioners, nursery nurses, managers or volunteers. We can still actively listen to the child or young persons perspective on their own lives in matters of safeguarding. In fact, this is one of the issues that was raised as a lesson learnt in the NSPCC (2024) paper, that professionals did not hear from others that had information to share about the child. Although, it is recommended that we want to hear directly from the child; we have to remember that in the early years we develop deep and positive relationships with children. Afterall, positive relationships is one of our overarching principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage.
We are able through play and our high-quality interactions and teaching to create a safe and trusted relationship with children that a social worker with a busy caseload simply does not have the time to do. This puts us in a unique position as a profession that we can offer insight and deep understanding to conversations as advocates for the children that we work with. And we have a very valuable role to play in the team around the child, in making sure that the voice of that child is heard and understood. And this is why effective muti-agency working is important in safeguarding; because we all have a valuable piece of information to add to the jigsaw puzzle and this is none the less important then when it comes to the voice of the child.
If you would like to read the full NSPPC (2024) paper The Voice of the Child: Lessons form Serious case review; please click here.
We have developed a set of 5 safeguarding scenario cards that can be used as part of staff meetings, supervisions, inhouse training and continuous professional development. It is important to keep at the forefront of all staff the knowledge of what they would do in different situations; and make sure they are confident to take the adequate steps to safeguard our children.
Please note these are discussion pointers for your team, as the answers will be setting specific and these do not include the answers.