child abuse

Working together to safeguard children

Document that sets out a national framework of guidance on how all agencies and professionals should work together to promote children's welfare and protect them from abuse and neglect.

It is aimed at those who work in the health and education services, the police, social services, the probation service, and others whose work brings them into contact with children and families.

It is relevant to those working in the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors. It replaces the previous version of Working Together Under the Children Act 1989, which was published in 1991.

Exploring beliefs and values

This exercise is designed to prompt participants to ‘surface’ the beliefs and values that underlie their reactions to the situations that children are in. This exercise is usually carried out with a large group split into smaller groups of 4 – 5 people. It lasts approximately 90 minutes.

Safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation: supplementary guidance to 'Working together to safeguard children'

This guidance sets out how organisations and individuals - including police, teachers, social workers and health workers - should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people from sexual exploitation.

It aims to help agencies to: develop local preventive strategies; identify those at risk of being sexually exploited, to safeguard those who are being sexually exploited; and to identify and prosecute perpetrators. A chapter on the roles and responsibilities of agencies is included.

Professionalism, partnership and joined-up thinking : a research review of front-line working with children and families

This review directly addresses the practical implications of multiprofessional and multiagency working on the front line. It draws messages from a diffuse range of literature spanning organisational theories, research and practice to offer guidance to practitioners, team leaders and educators. While relating the evidence to historical, theoretical and current policy contexts, it retains a primary interest in the day-to-day experience of professionals in social care, education, health and other areas, and in trying to improve the outcomes for vulnerable children and families.