5.3 Arrangements for Training Staff

Employers are responsible for ensuring their staff are competent and confident in carrying out their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. To do this employers will recognise that staff have different training needs depending on their degree of contact and their level of responsibility.

All professionals including staff in the private and voluntary sectors, require a general awareness of known indicators and pre-disposing factors of abuse as well as (role specific) detailed knowledge of agreed policies and procedures.

As stipulated in Working Together to Safeguard Children, professionals should, in particular, be alert to the potential need for early help for a child who:

• is disabled and has specific additional needs
• has special educational needs (whether or not they have a statutory Education, Health and Care Plan)
• is a young carer
• is bereaved
• is showing signs of being drawn into anti-social or criminal behaviour, including gang involvement and association with organised crime groups/or serious violence, including knife crime
• is frequently missing/goes missing from care or from home
• is at risk of modern slavery, trafficking or any form of exploitation
• is at risk of being radicalised 
• is viewing problematic and/or inappropriate online content (for example, linked to violence), or developing inappropriate relationships online
• is in a family circumstance presenting challenges for the child, such as drug and alcohol misuse, adult mental health issues and domestic abuse
• is misusing drugs or alcohol themselves
• is suffering from mental ill health
• has returned home to their family from care
• is a privately fostered child
• has a parent or carer in custody
• is missing education, or persistently absent from school, or not in receipt of full-time education
• has experienced multiple suspensions and is at risk of, or has been permanently excluded

All front line staff must be trained to pass calls and enquiries about the safety of children to the appropriate professional staff. This includes reception and switchboard operators and administrative staff.

For staff working with adults, employers must ensure that they have sufficient training to inform and enable recognition of concerns about any dependent children which require referral to Children's Social Care/Police.

Health professionals, including GPs and professionals who predominantly treat adults, are expected to participate in safeguarding training. Expectations are set out in the Safeguarding Children and Young People: Roles and Competencies for Healthcare Staff (Intercollegiate document)

All employees and volunteers who have any contact with children must be included in their agency's training programme on child protection at basic or more advanced level according to their role.

For further information, please see Chapter 2 of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023.

The Safeguarding Children Partnership is accountable for:

• The provision of appropriate multi-agency safeguarding professional development and training.
• Outlining in published arrangements how multi-agency training will be commissioned, delivered, and monitored for attendance and impact
• Routine evaluation of the perceived effectiveness of the training received and evidence of the impact of training on outcomes for children and families

The Children Act 1989 promotes the view that all children and their parents should be considered as individuals and that family structures, culture, religion, ethnic origins and other characteristics should be respected.

The Equality Act 2010 safeguards those who may face discrimination. The act describes nine “protected characteristics” which identify those who may face inequality or harassment due to one or more of the nine protected characteristics:

1. age
2. disability
3. gender reassignment
4. marriage and civil partnership
5. race
6. religion or belief
7. pregnancy and maternity
8. Sex
9. Sexual orientation

All staff should, under the partnerships’ arrangements, be provided with comprehensive Equality, Diversity and inclusion training.

Such training must

• Be rooted in recognition of the diversity of families and communities staff serve and respect for the differing approaches to child rearing this diversity represents such as ethnicity, race, culture, heritage and sense of identity.
• Ensure that respect for difference is not confused with acceptance of any form of abuse or neglect;
• Equality, diversity and inclusion must be integrated within all child protection training provided to staff.