As professionals working with children and young people it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of the safeguarding requirements relating to the different aspects of our roles – particularly when, like at Family Action, you often work with families during many different stages of their lives.
This is particularly difficult when our services interact with a variety of different age groups within the family – especially as we might work with children long enough that they enter a different age bracket where different regulations and frameworks apply.
That’s why our Head of Quality and Safeguarding Liz Anderson put together a handy table collecting together the different safeguarding considerations for children and young people aged 0-25, including specific guidance relating to areas of their life with which they might need support – such as domestic abuse, caring and being left alone.
Liz said: “There are several considerations in the years when a young person may be legally a child, but increasingly independent: Making their own decisions, possibly living/working away from parents/guardians and/or engaging in sexual relationships to which they have legally consented.
“I produced this table – with age brackets along one axis and safeguarding/legal considerations along the other – to help me organise my thoughts and also to help clarify some of the key considerations for those who work with young people. The idea was to be able to scan across from the age of the individual you are working with and see prompts of things to consider.
“We, at Family Action, wanted to share this resource as an aid to others who might also find it useful.”
The work itself aims to categorise key safeguarding considerations at various ages and stages and is a useful tool for any other professional working in the field.
View/download the Liz’s safeguarding table.
