Glossary of Terms

Everyone has a duty of care – it is not something that you can choose. It is a legal and moral obligation to always act in the best interests of individuals and others to ensure their safety and wellbeing.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Safeguarding is a broad term which involves protecting the welfare of all children and vulnerable adults.

Child protection refers to the procedures we use to protect children at risk of significant harm or who have been harmed.

For all new starters to a role, an induction provides introductory training to allow them to carry out their tasks effectively and familiarise themselves with the new working environment and the organisation’s own policies and procedures.

Common induction topics include equality and diversity, fire safety awareness, health and safety, data protection and the new General Data Protection Regulation.

According to The CPD Certification Service, "Continuing Professional Development or CPD is the holistic commitment of professionals towards the enhancement of personal skills and proficiency throughout their careers".

Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) is statutory guidance produced by the Department for Education. The guidance contains information on what schools and colleges should do and sets out the legal duties with which schools and colleges must comply in order to keep children safe.

Every local authority area has an LSCB. Their roles and responsibilities include planning and developing local safeguarding policy and procedures, and scrutinising local arrangements to ensure their effectiveness. They also undertake reviews of serious cases and advise the local authority and their partners on lessons to be learned to help protect children in the future.

In Wales, they are called regional safeguarding children boards and in Scotland, they are called child protection committees.

A Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) is a multi-agency information sharing model to ensure information is not just held by one agency but is appropriately shared with others.

“If it’s a choice between data protection and child protection, child protection must come first.” Norman Baker

Outside of schools and colleges where it is mandatory to have one person responsible for Safeguarding – the Designated Safeguarding Lead – organisations that work with children and vulnerable adults should have a Designated Safeguarding Officer who will lead on safeguarding.

A child protection or safeguarding policy is a mandatory document that schools must produce in line with statutory guidance and should outline clearly what someone should do if a child discloses abuse or they suspect that a child is being, or maybe, harmed.

The Prevent duty means people in specified bodies must have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is the new law on how organisations can use personal data. If you hold information which falls within the scope of the Data Protection Act 1998, it will also fall within the scope of GDPR. The GDPR principles are similar to the DPA, but there is a new accountability requirement – you will have to demonstrate how you comply.

The Care Certificate is the new minimum standards that should be covered as part of induction training of new care workers.

If you work or volunteer to work with children or young people then you are defined as being in a ‘position of trust’ and are therefore bound by certain safeguarding policies and procedures.

The Core Skills Training Framework reassures employers that employees have been trained to a certain standard. The original Core Skills Framework for statutory/mandatory subjects have been extended to include selected clinical/care subjects.