Safeguarding (Children)

Safeguarding children is the action that is taken to promote a child’s welfare and protect them from harm.

Safeguarding means protecting children from abuse and maltreatment, and to prevent them from coming to harm in relation to their health or development and ensuring that they grow up with the provision of safe and effective care.

It is important that we act promptly in the case of a safeguarding concern to ensure we protect all children and provide the necessary actions to prevent children from being at risk.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and the utmost priority for Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust.

This service, incorporating the Looked After Children (LAC) team, provides the following support:

• A Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) – all multi-agency referrals are received and actioned by the hub
• An on-call duty service – providing advice, guidance and consultations regarding Safeguarding and LAC. The service also flags safeguarding alerts and distributes missing children alerts and maternity alerts (missing mother and unborn child). It also monitors birth plans and ’cause for concerns’ relating to unborn children. The service maintains the child protection list for health for children in Walsall.
• Training – Level 2 and Level 3 safeguarding training is offered for all health professionals covering all aspects of safeguarding
• Supervision – the team provides supervision with four health professionals available to discuss cases of concerns, child protection and child in need cases.
• Domestic abuse – the service works with police and attends fortnightly Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) meetings to discuss domestic abuse incidents
• Missing children – the service is part of the Children Missing Operational Group (CMOG) and discusses cases of child sexual exploitation
• Legal – Court statements requested from a health professional are provided. Advice and guidance is also given where appropriate
• Looked After Children (LAC) and Transition and Leaving Care (TLC) –  the service arranges and distributes both initial and review health assessments to the LAC Nurse or for other health professionals to complete. It monitors children who are going into and out of care from within the Walsall area. Placement updates are provided on admissions and discharges and adoption placement orders are also processed