Safeguarding Children and Young People: Education Essay

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
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Safeguarding Children and Young People
Various quarters responsible for policy formulation are currently working around the clock to ensure that children and young people are safe within the school environment. Safety in school is essential because a safe environment allows learners to absorb what they learn without hindrance from other factors. It is everyone's responsibility in the learning environment, including teachers and other staff members, to ensure that children are always safe whenever they are in school. This goal is often achieved by training the relevant staff to detect and respond to incidences that may jeopardize a learner's safety within the learning environment. The Protection of Freedoms Act of 2012 introduced new regulations where authorities required a thorough vetting and selection of staff working with children and young people in regulated areas such as schools. As a response, various educational centers have rolled out plans to ensure that they implement this act to the latter. In turn, schools have become more secure today than before, thanks to the education docket's efforts. Therefore, the following paper discusses how policy guides educationists to implement safeguarding children and young people in schools.
The terms safeguarding and child protection are often used interchangeably. However, it is worth mentioning that they are broadly different and are hinged on varied principles. The term protection can only be used when the child or young person is at risk or vulnerable to harm within the school environment (Pearce 2014, p.86). On the other hand, safeguarding is a broad term that means taking care of all learners regardless of their vulnerability. Safeguarding in schools is based on three significant ideals. The first is that there has to be a straightforward safeguarding ethos. Secondly, there must be an established policy structure that sets out clear expectations and processes that would guide the safeguarding process (S.C.P.H.N., J.B.R.R.D. 2013, p.28). Finally, there has to be a presence of qualified staff who understand their roles and know what to do to effectuate children's safeguarding and protection in an education setting. As mentioned before, there is an official document that education authorities have availed to various learning institutions to help these institutions formulate a comprehensive plan to protect children and young people within these environments.
The policies that protect and safeguard children have been revised numerous times to ensure that the content always conforms to prevailing situations. According to the Children Act of 1989, a child is defined as "anyone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday, even if they live independently, are a member of the armed forces, or are in hospital (Lloyd 2018, p. 2024). This definition effectively places individuals from kindergarten to college level as children who need to be protected while at school. In expounding what safeguarding a child means, the department of education noted that,
"Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone's responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families and carers has a role to play in safeguarding children. In order to fulfill this responsibility effectively, all professionals should make sure their approach is child-centered. This means that they should consider, at all times, what is in the best interest of the child (Lloyd 2018, p. 2024)."
Following this declaration, the ministry of education gives schools a list of requirements that they must fulfill in a bid to ensure the safeguarding and protection of children within the school environment. The first requirement is that schools should make sure that the learning environment is safe by implementing various safeguarding practices. Schools must also make sure that adults who share the same compound with children, including workers and support staff, do not pose any risk to children (Baginsky 2018, p.94). Besides, schools must cultivate an environment where learners can approach any staff member without fear to air their grievances or share their problems. Furthermore, schools should teach children the importance of staying safe in school and online and how to achieve the same (Keeling and Oakley 2020, p.39). Finally, schools should ensure that the staff is adequately trained to handle any issue regarding children's safety and make sure they are up to date with the latest policies and practices.
Safeguarding children and young people in schools is becoming more complicated by the day because of the internet's ubiquity. Today, virtually all children in the U.K. have access to the internet and know to browse various components of the same May-Chahal, C. and (Coleman 2013, p.127). Aside from socializing, students use the internet for learning and research purposes. It then means that the internet is part of the school environment today, and there is a need to establish mechanisms to protect children from potentially harmful content. According to the i-SAFE foundation, over 25% of teenagers and adolescents have experienced bullying over the internet in one way or another. In response to such incidences, the education department has asked schools to implement practical approaches that cushion children from such a harsh environment. The department has outlined that the schools need to educate the entire school community on the use of technology and ensure that all learners are effectively protected from the internet's dangers.
Schools play a substantial role in safeguarding and protecting children and young people within the learning environment. There is a set of procedures established to ensure this role of education centers. One step is to develop safeguarding teams. Even though every worker's responsibility within the school compound is to ensure children are safe, teachers have the most significant obligation when it comes to the same (Corby 2015, p.59). One of the critical responsibilities of teachers is to prevent radicalization in schools. In 2006, the educational department came up with an aspect of children protection called 'Prevent.' This aspect was a strategy that helped teachers to cushion children from the vulnerability of radicalization by various extremist groups within and outside the country (Brandon and Thoburn 2018, p.377). Children are some of the most vulnerable demographic when it comes to extremism. Extremist groups are aware of this fact and have heightened their operations to get young people to join their groups. In response, the government rolled out a training pack for teachers, which helped them to be able to identify children and young people who are most vulnerable to extremism and taking necessary steps to ensure these children do not fall victim to the same.
Preventing child sexual exploitation is another responsibility that the government has entrusted to teachers. Sexual exploitation occurs in many forms and takes the shape of coercion, manipulation, and deceit of children into engaging in sexual activities. In most cases, sexual exploitation is done on children (Low et al. 201-5, p.523). Schools also protect children by preventing grooming, which can be comprehensively defined as the effort to build an emotional relationship with a child to gain their trust to exploit them sexually or use them for various criminal activities. These experiences are rampant in the U.K. to the point that they have become a security issue. Many children have been victims of grooming and ended up dropping out of school because of frustrations arising from sexual exploitation or engaging in criminal activities (Evans et al. 87, p.97). In the past, grooming used to happen in the real world where the children could physically interact with the individual grooming them. However, with technological advancement, most individuals engaging in grooming children are doing the same through the internet. Since internet penetration is vast today, it is right to say that a substantial number of children are exposed to grooming. Teachers come in to help detect the specific act or identify individuals who are likely to be victims of grooming.
According to the department of education, child sexual abuse and child criminal exploitation are "forms of abuse and both occur where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance in power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child into sexual or criminal activity (Keeping children safe in education 2021)." A broad array of factors lead to sexual abuse and criminal exploitation, including age, access to economic resources, status, physical strength, cognitive ability, sexual identity, and gender. In most cases, a person may decide to involve a child in these activities if they are vulnerable and need assistance from them (Murray 2018, p. 132). At the same time, it may be because the individual is looking for some financial gain from the child, like involving children in the trafficking of drugs or making them prostitutes. Even though the abuse can be a one-time occurrence, a substantial number of them are recurrent and happen over a long period before being detected (Walker. and Thurston 2016, p.645). A child may fear revealing these challenges to responsible authorities because of the fear of the consequences they might face. Therefore, teachers' responsibility is to acquire skills that help them detect such cases in good time.
Teachers also must prevent children from forced marriage. Forced marriage is a situation where one or both participants do not consent to the activity. According to the U.K. government, forced marriage is one of the most serious criminal offenses and abuse of human rights. Therefore, to help curb it, teachers must ensure most vulnerable children are protected and do not engage in such activities (HOPE 2016, p. 38). An even more critical challenge that the government tasks teachers in preventing is bullying. Bullying is a significant challenge occurring at any level of education and has happened for some time now. Bullying takes a plethora of forms (Fellows 2011, p.312). Even...