Safeguarding Children

How we safeguard children

Safeguarding children is everybody’s business and we understand that children have a right to be protected from harm and all adults have a responsibility to protect children from harm.

The Trust provides a range of health services to children and their family and also to adults who care for or have contact with children. To ensure we are safeguarding children and young people responsibly across all services, all health staff undertake training in how to spot and report child abuse.

We recognise the importance of partnership and we work between children and young people, parents and carers, and agencies to stop and prevent child abuse in accordance with the law. We work with everyone to make sure that children are safe.

Our safeguarding children policy

Our trust has a legal duty to report any concerns about a child or adult’s safety to social care or the police.

If your own child is abused, you have a legal responsibility to get help to keep your child safe. If you do not take steps yourself or seek others to help you to protect your child there may be a need to find alternative safe care for your child to protect them from any future harm.

If you spot abuse or have concerns about a child’s welfare as a patient or visitor to our Trust (or elsewhere) you have a legal responsibility to report this to stop any further harm or abuse from occurring and stop the perpetrator of the abuse from being a potential risk to other children or adults.

Our safeguarding policy outlines that we:

Protect children from maltreatment
Prevent impairment of children’s health or development
Ensure that children grow up in a safe environment and are cared for effectively
Take action to ENSURE all children have the best outcome where there are welfare or safeguarding concerns by working together with the child, their family and other services to get the right support at the right time

We act in accordance with the Children Act 1989 and Section 11 of the Children Act 2004.

Everyone can help to keep children safe

At the Trust we have a legal duty to report any concerns about a child’s safety to social care or the police. But keeping children and young adults safe is up to everybody, both in and outside of the Trust.

If your own child is abused, you have a legal responsibility to get help to keep your child safe. If you do not take steps yourself to find others to help you to protect your child, there may be a need to find alternative safe care for your child to protect them from any future harm.

If you spot abuse or have concerns about a child’s welfare as a patient or visitor to our Trust (or elsewhere), please report it. Doing so can stop any further harm or abuse and can help to put an end to the abuser’s actions.

Some common signs of abuse of neglect include: