Protecting looked after and adopted children from sexual abuse in care: A guide for professionals
£14.95
For most children and young people who cannot remain living safely at home, foster care, kinship care, adoption, and special guardianship provide safe and caring families. However, for a few this is not the case – children can and do experience sexual abuse while in care. This companion guide draws on information in the associated practice guide, Child sexual abuse in foster and kinship care, special guardianship and adoption: Learning from safeguarding reviews 2007–2022. This guide details the results of a study of safeguarding reviews involving 87 children, who were sexually abused by members of the household or family friends while living with foster or kinship carers, special guardians or adopters.
The findings explain what happened to the children and why, and identify relevant and recurring themes relating to professional culture, systems and practice that can hinder professionals and organisations from safeguarding children effectively. These include hasty assessments, demanding court timescales, children’s fear of disclosure, and not taking into account historical allegations.
This companion guide makes the knowledge from the practice guide study more readily accessible to those in practice. It poses a series of questions for professionals to encourage reflection and prompt, practical actions, to help maximise their opportunities to ensure that children are safe.
This is a vital resource to support social workers and managers, panel members, reviewing officers, and health and education professionals, in carrying out their responsibility to safeguard children’s welfare. This companion guide is not a comprehensive set of practice guidelines or a replacement for professional judgements, but has been developed with the knowledge from the study to assist the judgements professionals are required to make. It should be read in conjunction with the Good Practice Guide.
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