Safeguarding children, safeguarding staff

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Safeguarding children, safeguarding staff

• ACWA 2008
• Nick Burnett

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Background

• Legal
• Rights of the Child
• Children Acts
• OHS

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Risk Management
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Safeguarding Children

• To touch or not to touch?
• Guidance, guidelines and policy
• Bad people doing bad things
• V
• Good people doing the right things

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Safeguarding Staff

• Careful Language
• Keeping people safe
• Policy how we keep people safe
• Do you want us to keep your child safe?
• Dynamic risk assessment results in a decision to
  choose the safest option
• Take someone to a safer place

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The Right Questions?

• What are you allowed to do?
• What are you supposed to do?
• What is the best way to avoid allegations?
• The defence of necessity
• Necessary
• Reasonable
• Proportionate

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Positive Handling

• The full range of strategies and interventions
• Non-physical
• Space
• Stance
• Signals
• Physical
• Guiding
• Escorting
• Restraining

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Restricting, Restraining, Removing

• Restricting people from moving around freely
• Restraining people by holding them securely
• Removing people by taking them from one place to
  another
• Beware absolutes
• Degree, extent and intensity

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Risk Management

• Gradient of negative consequences
• Risk assessments
• Formal
• Dynamic
• Right decisions sometimes result in wrong
  outcomes
• Balancing risks

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What is Important?
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Holding Back

• Do we need to do anything?
• Do we need to act now?
• Am I the best person to do it?
• Do I need assistance?
• Is this really necessary?
• Is there a better option?

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The Right Answers

• Lawful excuse
• Defence of necessity
• Acting in the best interests of the child
• the paramouncy principle

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Childrens Right to be Heard

• Children and young people did not say that
  people who had got dangerously out of control
  should not be restrained. Their concern was much
  more clear than that. It was that staff who
  restrain children should know how to do it
  properly.
• Roger Morgan - Childrens Rights Director 2004

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Talking to children

• We hold children to stop them hurting themselves
• We hold children to stop them hurting other
  people
• We hold children to prevent them from doing
  something they will later regret.
• We hold children to keep them safe
• We hold children when they cannot hold themselves
  safely
• We care enough not to let children be out of
  control

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Best Defence Checklist for Staff

• 1 Did you think before you acted did you
  conduct a quick risk assessment?
• 2 How were your actions in the best interests of
  the child?

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Key Questions for Staff

• Am I able to do this safely?
• How is this in the best interests of this
  particular child?
• What are the negative consequences I am trying to
  prevent?

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Employers Staff Are Judged by What They
Feel, Think, Say, Do DOCUMENT
Documentation
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Writing it up

• 1 When you made a dynamic risk assessment what
  were you thinking about?
• 2 How was this in the best interests of the child
  concerned?
• 3 Why did you think you could accomplish it
  safely?
• 4 What were you trying to do?
• 5 What happened?

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Key Questions for Services

• What steps did you take to identify risks?
• What steps did you take to warn staff and provide
  adequate guidance
• What steps did you take to ensure that staff were
  adequately trained?
• How did you ensure a safe system of work?

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Materials to help Safeguard Children and
Safeguard Staff
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Thanks

• Thanks for listening please complete the more
  information sheet at the front of the room, take
  a business card or come and see me in the
  exhibitions if you want more info
• Nick Burnett
• nick_at_i-for-k.com.au or nick_at_team-teach.com.au
• Mobile [phone]
• www.i-for-k.com.au