12.5 Arrangements for Training Staff

Employers are responsible for ensuring their members of staff are competent and confident in carrying out their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. In order to this, employers will recognise that members of 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, including recognising and responding to safeguarding and child protection concerns, multi-agency working and completing child in need assessments, safeguarding disabled children and safeguarding where there are concerns about domestic abuse, parental mental ill health and substance misuse.

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

LSCB training for staff engaged in child protection work must include:

• The Assessment Framework;
• Basic and advanced inputs on all forms of abuse and neglect, associated vulnerability and risk indicators and resilience/protective factors;
• Targeted joint training - e.g. Achieving Best Evidence.

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/Safeguarding Investigations Unit.

GPs are expected to participate in child protection training and are also responsible, as employers, for ensuring their employees are provided with opportunities to attend relevant training.

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 1.4 of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

The LSCB is accountable for:

• Provision of sufficient general and specialised training;
• Clarifying the specialist training required for different staff e.g. those undertaking Section 47 Enquiries, GPs etc;
• Monitoring of the take-up rate amongst those offered those training opportunities; and
• Routine evaluation of the perceived effectiveness of the training received.

All operational staff must routinely be provided with opportunities for basic and comprehensive anti-discriminatory training.

Such training must

• Be rooted in recognition of the diversity of families and communities and respect for the differing approaches to child rearing this diversity represents;
• Ensure that respect for difference is not confused with acceptance of any form of abuse or neglect;
• Equality and diversity issues must be integrated within all child protection training provided to staff.