What is a Child Safeguarding Statement?
Before preparing your Child Safeguarding Statement, you must undertake an assessment of any potential for harm to a child availing of your service (“risk assessment”). The risks you are assessing should be based on “harm” as defined in the Children First Act 2015.
A Child Safeguarding Statement is a written statement that specifies the service being provided and the principles and procedures to be observed in order to ensure, as far as practicable, that a child availing of the service is safe from harm. It should set out any potential risk of “harm” to a child that you have identified in your risk assessment, and procedures in place to reduce the identified risks, as specified in section 11 (3) of the Children First Act 2015.
The Child Safeguarding Statement should provide an overview of the measures that your organisation has in place to ensure that children are protected from harm. It may also refer to more detailed policies which can be made available on request.
Services in operation prior to the commencement of Section 11 of the Children First Act 2015 in December 2017 were required to, not later than 3 months from that date, have a Child Safeguarding Statement in place. Where a service proposes to operate as a provider of a relevant service, they shall within 3 months from the date on which they commence, have a Child Safeguarding Statement in place.
Upon completion, the Child Safeguarding Statement must be furnished to all staff members. It must be displayed in a prominent place and made available to parents and guardians, Tusla and members of the public upon request.
This short video for organisations explains who has to have a child safeguarding statement as well as the information that has to be included in a child safeguarding statement.
For guidance on how to develop a Child Safeguarding Statement, and a copy of our Template, please follow link below.
Information and Support for Relevant Services | |||
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