How to Safeguard Within a Nursery
Whether you own or manage a nursery or even just work there on a casual-hours basis, the safeguarding of children in your care is absolutely paramount. Safeguarding is a term that applies to protecting children (and vulnerable adults) from harm. There are various measures that nursery managers can take to ensure that effective safeguarding practices are as robust as can be.
What Is Safeguarding?
As outlined in the government’s Working Together to Safeguard Children Paper (2015), the practice refers to the following: protecting children from maltreatment; preventing problems with children’s health/development; ensuring children grow up in a way that involves effective care; and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes. Essentially, it means that children are cared for in a safe setting, and it can include anything from making sure equipment is safe to checking window locks or having an up-to-date list of adults who are authorised to collect children.
Safeguarding Training is one of the most effective ways to make sure your setting has a consistent safeguarding policy which is understood and carried out by all staff. The training will not only highlight issues of safeguarding but also how to spot potential abuse of children in your care and the steps that can be taken to prevent and stop it.
Staff must all have DBS checks. These can be carried out by companies such as carecheck.co.uk, who can check with the Disclosures and Barring Services on your behalf in order to discover the criminal history of any individual. Those working in the provision of care for children will require an Enhanced DBS rather than a Basic DBS.
The best way to ensure you have excellent procedures is to draw up a policy that leaves no room for error and ensures that staff are fully aware of the policy. This policy should also be made available for inspectors and parents to check at any time. Some nursery settings have their safeguarding policy up on display, whilst others have it available to access through their website in PDF form.
Safeguarding is one of the most important aspects of managing a nursery. Do plenty of research and take advice on this subject to make sure you are fully protecting the children in your care.