Recognising Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation
Amendment
In March 2024, this chapter changed from Responding to Recognising Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation to align with National Chapters in Safeguarding Partnership Boards.
It was updated throughout and aligned with Children and Young Person (Jersey) Law 2022, the commensurate Statutory Guidance and the JCF Framework, and The Continuum of Children’s Needs. The chapter updated to include SPB Core Procedures and Practitioner Guidance, The Child Protection Medical Pathway and Child Sexual Abuse Pathway added. Recommendation for the use of Single and Multi-Agency Supervision and the use of the Professional Difference Escalation Pathway. Updated with thanks to the London Safeguarding Partnership Board and NSPCC.
To be added in Phase Two 2024:
- A chapter on Bruising with a tool to use around body mapping injuries;
- Statutory guidance on the use of independent advocacy for certain children and young people.
Safeguarding the welfare of children and young people is everyone’s business, all staff are required to work together. It is essential practitioners recognise, respond and take action with timely referrals for children who are at risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Practitioners should use professional curiosity and develop and maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’. Practitioners must act in the best interests of the child or young people where their needs remain paramount.
This guidance is for all practitioners (paid or unpaid) who work with children (including the unborn child), young people, and those who work with adults who are parents/carers and who therefore hold responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. It is intended to be read alongside the Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2022,the commensurate Statutory Guidance and the Jersey Children’s First Framework (JCF). Practitioners must follow the Statutory Guidance on sharing information (which follows the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018).
The purpose of this chapter is to promote arrangements which safeguard the welfare of children and young people with the use of multi-agency working together principles and to:
- Provide information on how to recognise different forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation (SPB Core Procedures and practitioner guidance);
- Provide all practitioners with procedures which comply with The Statutory Guidance (Children and Young People Safeguarding Referrals Procedure);
- Give access to evidence based research Tools to enhance practice decisions.
Practitioners must understand their statutory responsibilities in the identification of abuse, neglect and exploitation, see SPB Jersey The Continuum of Children’s Needs.
Where a child or young person’s welfare requires safeguarding, practitioners must also understand the wellbeing, health and development needs of each child, young person and where applicable parent/carer. The statutory guidance has been produced as a requirement of the Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2022, and the guidance outlines the arrangements that enable staff to identify and respond to different presentations of need at any point in a child’s life:
- Wellbeing need;
- Health or Development Need;
- Safeguarding Need.
Practitioners must be mindful of indicators which raise risk and may be barriers to disclosing abuse or to accessing support such as the child or young person:
- Are disabled – have special educational needs, have communication or language delay;
- Are living (including being born into) family circumstances presenting with challenge such as problematic substance use (including alcohol), mental health, domestic abuse;
- Present with self-harm, mental health or suicidal ideation;
- Are young carers or are bereaved;
- Are at risk of or go missing from care or from home;
- Are living away from home;
- Have a parent/carer in custody;
- Are children and young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET);
- Are children who are not visible in their community, due to age, disability or other circumstance such as home schooling.
The Children (Jersey) Law 2002 defines the concept of significant harm as the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interests of children and gives statutory agencies such as the Children’s Service and the Police a duty to make enquiries and to decide whether they should take action to safeguard or promote the welfare of a child who is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.
Children and families are supported most effectively and efficiently when services are planned and delivered in a co-ordinated way. The vision for children, young people and their families is to have the right service at the right time to meet identified need and for these services to be delivered and supported by flexible and responsive practitioners. Services that provide Right Help Right Time are part of the continuum of help and support responding to individual children and family’s needs.
The Continuum of Children’s Needs provides everyone with clear direction and advice about what to do and how to respond if a child and family need extra help and support. It also includes information regarding the criteria, including the level of need, for when a child should be referred to the Children and Families HUB.
Effective safeguarding systems must be child centred. Problems can arise in safeguarding systems when there is lost sight of the needs and views of children and young people or the interests of adults are put ahead of the needs of children. A balance to this is that parents/carers where it is safe and suitable should be viewed as partners. Everyone working with children and families must seek the voice of the child and reflect and respond to it in all aspects of work. Listening to what the child is saying, and what their body language tells a professional is an essential part of understanding and responding to their needs.
Practitioners must take into account not only what they say but how they behave, children and young people are unlikely to directly disclose abuse, neglect or exploitation. Whilst understanding the child must not be pressed for information, led, or cross-examined, they must be heard (see SPB Respecting and Capturing the Voice of the Child).
Children and young people must be given this voice and agencies must have means of communicating effectively with children and young people, including those with communication needs and where English is not a first language.
Under the Children and Young People Law 2022, there will be requirement to appoint independent advocates for a range of children and young people, (draft regulations are in progress and will be added).
Working with children to capture their voice may involve using interpreters and drawing upon the expertise of early years workers or those working with children with disabilities. Working with the practitioners who have established safe and trusting relationships with the children. Where it is necessary to create the right atmosphere when meeting and communicating with children, to help them feel at ease, reduce any pressure, and remove responsibility from them.
Children and young people need reassurance that they will not be blamed or punished for sharing information or asking for help or protection; this applies to children and young people living in families as well as those in residential/institutional settings, including those custody or mental health settings. It is important children and young people are not given false assurances of absolute confidentiality.
It is essential that any concerns of abuse, neglect or exploitation about children and young people are recorded accurately, using their words where possible. Recording the child or young person’s presentation and body language. Using tools such as body maps to record marks, bruises or injuries, recording as completely as possible what is seen, heard and the actions taken to protect (See SPB Record Keeping).
Accuracy is key as without it, effective decisions cannot be made and inaccurate accounts can lead to children remaining unsafe or the possibility of wrongful actions being taken that affect children and their parents/carers.
The following definitions are used when determining significant harm:
| Type of Abuse | Definition |
|---|---|
|
Physical |
A form of abuse, which may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child (FII). |
|
Emotional |
The persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only as far as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond a child’s developmental capability, as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration and learning, or preventing the child participating in normal social interaction. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying (including cyber bullying), causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children. Seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another for example. where there is domestic abuse, or a sibling is exposed to scapegoating and abuse. Serious bullying, causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, Exploiting and corrupting children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, though it may occur alone. |
|
Sexual |
Involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether the child is aware of what is happening or not. The activities may involve physical contact, including assault by penetration (for example, rape or oral sex) or non-penetrative acts such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside of clothing. They may also include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, or grooming a child in preparation for abuse (including via the internet). Adult males do not solely perpetrate sexual abuse. Women can also commit acts of sexual abuse, as can other children. Child Sexual Abuse can be intrafamilial or extra familial. Please refer to the Sexual Offenses (Jersey) Law 2018 for further information. |
|
Neglect |
The persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy because of maternal substance abuse. Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:
Please refer to SPB Neglect Strategy for further information and tools to support assessment such as Graded Care Profile, Pre-Birth Risk Assessment Tool. |
|
Extra Familial Abuse |
Safeguarding risks have been traditionally associated with the home environment and linked to parenting capacity. However, children and young people are increasingly facing significant safeguarding and welfare risks outside of their home known associated with extra-familial harm. Risks of extra-familial harm often increase during the adolescent years as their social networks widen and can have a considerable influence over their understanding of social norms. Examples of extra-familial harm include:
These extra-familial threats might arise at school and other educational establishments, from within peer groups, or more widely from within the wider community and/or online. Please see Child Exploitation Risk Assessment Tool. |
|
Child Sexual Exploitation |
Child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse. It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity.
The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur using online technology. Please see Child Exploitation Risk Assessment Tool. |
|
Domestic Abuse |
Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence and abuse between those aged 16 or over, who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender and sexuality. Research analysing Serious Case Reviews has demonstrated a significant prevalence of domestic abuse in the history of families with children who are subject of Child Protection Plans. Children can be affected by seeing, hearing and living with domestic violence and abuse as well as being caught up in any incidents directly, whether to protect someone or as a target. It should also be noted that the age group of 16- and 17-year-olds have been found in recent studies to be increasingly affected by domestic violence in their peer relationships. It should therefore be considered in responding to concerns that the definition of domestic violence and abuse (see Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding Children) as follows: This can encompass, but is not limited to, the following types of abuse:
Controlling behaviour is a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour. Coercive behaviour is an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim. |
|
SPB Core Procedures for further information on:
|
See links to all chapters here. |
Where defining abuse, neglect and exploitation consideration must be given to the severity of ill-treatment, the degree and the extent of harm, the duration and frequency of abuse and neglect, the extent of premeditation, and the presence or degree of threat, coercion, sadism and bizarre or unusual elements. As these criteria have been associated with more severe effects on the child, and/or greater difficulty in helping the child overcome the adverse impact of their maltreatment.
Significant harm from abuse and/or neglect can be related to one single incident or event e.g. physical or sexual assault, deliberate harm from suffocation or poisoning. Somebody may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm or by failing to act to prevent harm.
Or it can be from a compilation of significant and neglectful events, both acute and longstanding, which interrupt, change or damage the child's physical and psychological development. For example, for children who live in families and within social circumstances where their health and development are affected, indirectly from the pervasive impact of poverty and/or directly from an inability of parents/carers to meet their basic needs and protect them from significant harm. For these children, it is the corrosiveness of long-term neglect, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, exposure to domestic abuse that causes impairment to their health, development and wellbeing to the extent of constituting significant harm.
If the child or young person has suffered harm and they require immediate medical attention, the medical attention they require should not be held up by a need for practitioners to make referrals to other supportive services. Practitioners must seek the medical attention required by calling the emergency services on 999. Practitioners must stay with the child or young person until emergency services have arrived where decisions can be made about who will travel with the child to hospital.
Following the immediacy of seeking medical attention practitioners must then follow the advice in Section 8, Making a Referral.
Where a child (including an unborn child) or young person presents with a health or development need) or where there is a safeguarding Need (see Statutory Guidance – Levels of Need) practitioners must:
- Follow the SPB Child Protection Procedures and the SPB Children and Young People Safeguarding Referrals Procedure;
- Practitioners must refer to the Children and Families Hub;
- Where there is immediate risk of harm, practitioners must call the police on 999;
- Where a child may have been physically abused, suffered neglect or sexual abuse consideration must be given to following the Child Protection Medical Pathway and/or the Child Sexual Abuse Pathway;
- Where identifying a child at risk of significant harm there are also concerns an adult may be at risk of harm, practitioners must raise a safeguarding concern with referral to the Single Point of Referral;
- Please see specific guidance for children at risk of other forms of abuse identified in the SPB Safeguarding Practice Guidance such as those at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation, or neglect where there are tools to support professional judgment included for practitioners to use;
- In parallel where a child is at risk of domestic abuse, and where there is high risk for their parent/carer practitioners should refer any adult or young person with their consent to supportive domestic abuse services (See supportive agencies listed below).
Where a child or young person has an already allocated social worker
If the child or young person is known to have an allocated social worker, practitioners must make a timely notification of concern to the duty children’s social worker copying in both the allocated Children’s Social Worker and their Line Manager. It is important practitioners receive confirmation their notification of concern has been received, and in a timely manner commensurate to the risk (simply leaving an email will not be sufficient). Where practitioners must call and have conversation and follow this up with a notification of incident of concern form. Where in doubt practitioners should place a Children and Families HUB enquiry where within the Multi-Agency Safeguarding HUB, the MASH Decision Maker can offer a consultation service to practitioners and act as go between for Children’s Social Work and referring agency.
The outcome will be dependent on the severity of the concern and if in doubt advice should be sought from the MASH Decision Maker as it is important referrals are received and acted on commensurate to the risk identified. The referrer should confirm verbal and telephone referrals have been received and are being acted upon.
For further details, see Children and Young Person Safeguarding Referrals Procedure.
Where there is immediate risk or urgent concern then staff must call the States of Jersey police 999.
Where action is not taken commensurate to the risk the referring practitioner has assessed then the referring practitioner should consider taking further advice from the MASH Decision Maker or Children’s Social Worker to understand if they have explained their level of concern clearly enough.
Professional challenge should be welcomed and partnership working depends on resolving professional difference and conflict as soon as possible. Where staff experience professional differences, they must follow the SPB Resolving Professional Difference/Escalation Policy.
Non-recent abuse (also known as historical abuse) is an allegation of neglect, physical, sexual or emotional abuse made by or on behalf of someone who is now 18 years or over, relating to an incident which took place when the alleged victim was under 18 years old.
Adults and children sometimes make allegations of child abuse many years after the abuse has occurred. There are many reasons for an allegation not being made at the time including fear of reprisals, the degree of control exercised by the abuser, shame or fear that the allegation may not be believed. The person becoming aware that the abuser is being investigated for a similar matter or their suspicions that the abuse is continuing against other children may trigger the allegation.
Reports of historical allegations may be complex as the alleged victims may no longer be living in the situations where the incidents occurred or where the alleged perpetrators are also no longer linked to the setting or employment role.
Such cases should be responded to in the same way as any other concerns the person disclosing non recent abuse when they are an adult should be encouraged to make complaint to the police and the practitioner receiving the information should follow the Children and Young Person Safeguarding Referrals Procedure and refer to the Children and Families HUB. As it is important to ascertain as a matter of urgency if the alleged perpetrator is still working with, or caring for, children.
Organisational responses to allegations by an adult of abuse experienced as a child must be of as high a standard as a response to current abuse because:
- There is a significant likelihood that a person who abused a child/ren in the past will have continued and may still be doing so;
- Criminal prosecutions can still take place even though the allegations are historical in nature and may have taken place many years ago.
If it comes to light that the historical abuse is part of a wider setting of institutional or organised abuse, the case will be dealt with according to the Organised and Complex Abuse Procedure.
In certain circumstances, agencies or individuals can anticipate the likelihood of significant harm with regard to an expected child when they are born (see The Continuum of Children’s Needs)
These concerns should be addressed as early as possible in the antenatal period, so that a pre-birth assessment can be undertaken by Children’s Social work, where services providing care and support to the expectant parents will be offered in parallel to enable the parent/s (wherever possible) to provide safe care to the child when they are born.
For more information see: Joint Protocol for Multi-Agency Pre-Birth Assessment and Referral Pathway
Practitioners working in adult front line services need to be as competent as those practitioners working in children’s front line services at identifying abuse, neglect and exploitation. Where they work with adults who are parents/carers. Adult services practitioners must consider the impact of the adult's condition, presentation, substance use, mental health, disability, domestic abuse (list is not endless) and/or behaviour on:
- Any child or young person wellbeing, health, development and welfare in their care;
- Family functioning;
- The adult's parenting capacity.
Where a professional working with adults has concerns about the parent's capacity to care for the child and considers that the child is likely to be harmed or is being harmed, they should Make a Referral (see Section 8).
It is essential adult services work together with children’s services and where requests for information about a parent or carer for a child, are made to health practitioners such as GPs, adult mental health, drug and alcohol services or other specialist services by children’s services through for example MASH Enquiry this information must be shared following information sharing in the Statutory Guidance.
Adult Services, whether commissioning or provider organisations, should employ safeguarding leads who can advise on safeguarding children. The roles and responsibilities of Designated and Named Safeguarding Practitioners should be clear and accessible to all staff and made known to partner agencies to assist in the process of sharing information.
All school and educational staff members have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn and develop. All schools and educational settings in Jersey should make reference to the Education Department Safeguarding and Child Protection policy. This has been developed alongside Keeping Children Safe in Education.
Each setting should have a designated safeguarding lead. This role should be clearly set out and supported with a regular training and development programme as recommended by SPB. If a professional has any concerns about a child/ren they should in the first instance inform the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). For further information see UK guidance ‘What to do if you are worried a child is being abused: Advice for Practitioners'.
All settings must have safer recruitment policies and procedures in place.
All agencies must have clear policies and procedures in accordance with the SPB procedures for managing allegations against people who work with children must be in operation (see Allegations Against Staff or Volunteers Procedure).
Practitioners should have access to regular internal agency safeguarding supervision.
Agencies should consider multi-agency reflective supervision where cases are complex, stuck or drifting.
Practitioners must be supported through training to understand their role in identifying new and emerging problems, including extra familial harm, online abuse, grooming, sexual exploitation and radicalisation and be supported with the identification of adults in the child’s home or life who may pose risk as abusers, or potential abusers to children and young people. See SPB Training here.
Keeping Children Safe in Education
Child Protection Evidence Resource – RCPCH Child Protection Portal
Last Updated: November 1, 2024
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