Children and young people

New Kent and Medway safeguarding procedures

There has been a number of national developments that have influenced how Medway Council and its partners safeguard and promote the welfare of children. These include:

• the Children Act 2004,
• the new Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006 initiative,
• Every Child Matters,
• the Common Assessment Framework,
• Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education.

The Children Act 2004 requires every council to establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) to replace the Area Child Protection Committees and have key statutory responsibilities for agreeing how the relevant organisations will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in that locality and for ensuring the effectiveness of this work.

Kent and Medway each have their own Safeguarding Children Boards that are working together to ensure that children and families get a consistent service across both areas. The new Kent and Medway safeguarding procedures are now available, are being used and all copies of the old procedures should be disposed of. The procedures can be found on the Medway Safeguarding Children Board website (www.mscb.org.uk) where additional information about safeguarding children in Medway can also be found.

These new procedures replace all previous procedures and include new guidance on issues relating to:

• racial or religious harassment,
• migrant children,
• child deaths,
• sexually active children,
• child protection conferences,
• bullying.

The procedures are more wide-ranging than those previously published by the Medway Safeguarding Children Board (MCSB) to reflect the wider safeguarding agenda.

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