Safeguarding
Introduction
Welcome to the safeguarding section of the Childcare and Early Years website. Here you will find a variety of resources to help you in your everyday practice in keeping the children in your care safe.
If you have a concern about a child being abused or neglected, you can contact the Children's Services Support Hub and request to speak to an early help officer or a social worker to discuss concerns on 0300 123 6720 or out of hours on 0300 123 6722. For day to day advice and guidance contact the Early Years Safeguarding Officer on 07909 001430.
The NSPCC website has lots of useful, up to date and easy to understand information and advice about the signs, symptoms and effects of child abuse.
Safeguarding training
We offer two safeguarding courses specifically targeted to meet the needs of the early years workforce.
The Introduction to Safeguarding training is now virtual. This allows for flexibility for practitioners accessing the course.
E-learning
There is a basic awareness raising e-learning course entitled 'Safeguarding Children Levels 1 and 2 v2' (takes approximately 4 hrs to complete) and can be found via the Children's Safeguarding Assurance Partnership.
Prevent duty
There has been some recent updates to the Prevent Duty risk assessment templates for use within early years, schools and further education settings. The link below provides guidance on how to complete a risk assessment with separate templates for each type of education environment. The use of these templates is not mandatory, but the guidance does refer to statutory requirements of the Prevent duty.
For further information see the following pages on the government's website:
Local referrals to: concern@lancashirepnn.police.uk
Recording templates
Services and information
Have you visited the updated Children's Safeguarding Assurance Partnership (CSAP) website? This has moved from the original place that was known as Lancashire Safeguarding Children Board. There is a wealth of information that can support you in safeguarding children and young people in Lancashire. For example, 7 minute briefings, learning and development opportunities as well as local updates and resources.
The CSAP website is aimed at providers in the localities of Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen and Lancashire. As a provider you are responsible for keeping your knowledge of how to keep children safe as up to date as possible. The CSAP website offers you that central hub to access this information at your fingertips.
The website can be shared far and wide to ensure any staff members you may have are keeping up to date. Consider using aspects of the website such as the e-learning section as part of your whole team continuous professional development or as part of the induction process.
Remember, all this information is local to your area and therefore relevant to the children and young people you welcome to your setting. All these resources are free.
Find everything you need here on the new Children's Safeguarding Assurance Partnership website.
Designated Lead Practitioners/Managers must contact the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) when they receive an allegation or concern about a person who works with children.
On 6 September 2021 Early Help Assessment replaced the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) across Lancashire.
Early Help Assessment e-learning is available to access via Astute e-learning.
The Children and Family Wellbeing Service (CFW) offers early help and support to children, young people age 0-19+yrs (0 - 25yrs for SEND) and their families across Lancashire. The service responds as early as possible when a child, young person, or family needs support.
The focus of the service is to provide support at level 2 or 3 on the Continuum of Need and is for those who have complex or intensive needs where we consider the provision of early help will make a positive difference.
CFW practitioners are able to offer practical support on a whole range of issues which may be affecting individuals or the family. Support is generally offered through a network of neighbourhood centres as well as in the community or in the family home. They also work with children, young people, parents (and parents to be) through group programmes, activities, and drop-in support.
For information about trauma and adverse childhood experiences refer to the Violence Reduction Network.
Learning and development
The ten minute quiz on the Astute e-learning platform is based on the 'Working Well with Children and Families in Lancashire' guidance.
This quiz can be completed to further enhance knowledge in a variety of ways for example: as part of an induction process, a general refresher or within a team meeting to contribute to continuous professional development.
If you have any technical problems accessing the quiz please contact: skillslanddastuteelearning@lancashire.gov.uk
The Information Commissioner's Office has created a 10 step guide on data protection considerations when sharing personal information for child safeguarding purposes.
It aims to help you feel confident about sharing information when you need to safeguard a child or young person at risk of harm. It does not tell you how to safeguard children and young people, but it does give you practical advice on data protection as part of the safeguarding process.
ICO: A 10 step guide to sharing information to safeguard children
Each year around 200 babies will die unexpectedly before their first birthday. Many of these deaths are classified as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or cot death, which usually happens when babies are sleeping.
As childcare practitioners you are well placed to highlight to parents and carers the importance of a safe sleep environment for babies.
The website Children's Safeguarding Assurance Partnership (CSAP) - safer sleep has lots of resources that are easy to download and share including: the Six Steps to Safer Sleep, a video and posters to display within your setting.
The Lullaby Trust website also has additional information that may be useful to best support families.
The Safeguarding Suitcase includes a mixture of resources that can be used to support the ongoing learning and development of childcare practitioners. The activities will help promote confidence and knowledge as an individual practitioner or can be used for a whole team learning together.
Focus On briefings
Sharing safeguarding messages with parents and carers
We are often asked about sharing safeguarding information with parents.
Some ways you could share awareness raising messages are:
a specific information sharing area in your setting
a parents information board
a parents newsletter
You could share things like advice and support on avoidable accidents at home and when out and about.
Avoid topics such as categories of abuse and neglect or signs and symptoms. These are probably not the most useful to share with families.
Lancashire is a very large and diverse county, there has been a high number of significant injuries and even deaths of children as a result of traumatic incidents.
We have provided some ideas and resources you can use to share messages about preventing accidents.
We will continue to add more to this section with more helpful tips that you can share with parents.
Creative ways to share safety messages with families
Do
Make displays colourful, bright, easy on the eye and engaging.
Deliver simple messages in a way that is easy to understand.
Do not
Overload displays with too much information.
Tone and topics
Ensure the message being shared is done in a helpful way and does not appear to parents or carers as if they are being told off.
Share top tips and advice that is achievable for families. Give some ideas and suggestions of how they can make reasonable adaptations to ensure the safety of their child.
Activities completed with children can also promote safety messages for parents or carers such as road and car seat safety topics.
Local information
Be familiar with your demographic area and cohort of families with children attending your setting. For example, are there many families in your area whose first language is not English? Do you have a high number of single parent families?
Consider the vulnerabilities within each of these types of groups. Be creative in sharing messages to reduce the risk of avoidable accidents at home.
Find out what resources and support agencies are available locally and let families know. You could even put together a little booklet of services and share this with families when you initially welcome them to your provision.
Ideas for displays
Child Accident Prevention Trust resources
The Child Accident Prevention Trust website is great for resources. You can download some resources for free, others you can order as hard copies, sometimes for a charge. Below is the full list of topics they cover.
Burns and scalds
Button batteries
Choking
Dog safety
Drowning
Falls
Fire safety
Magnets
Poisoning
Road Safety
Strangulation and suffocation
Toy safety
Accidents
Below are some themes of accidents in Lancashire:
The most common reason for death is vehicle collision*
Violence / maltreatment
Animal attacks – dog bites
Drowning - in the bath for young children and in open water environments for older children/teenagers
Accidental strangulation - window blinds
Falls – falling downstairs
Choking
Burns/electrocution
Falling objects – insecure furniture eg TV, bookcases and tall cabinets
There have been several incidents of young children swallowing laundry capsules as they are appealing like colourful jelly sweets
* There were no deaths to children when a car seat was used appropriately
General information about accidents
Most accidents happen between late afternoon and early evening, in the summer, during school holidays and at weekends.
Factors such as stress, death in the family, chronic illness, homelessness or moving home increase the likelihood of the child having an accident.
Some happen when the usual routine is changed or when people are in a hurry.
Distractions and inadequate supervision are often the cause of accidents.
Poor housing and overcrowded conditions lead to increased numbers of accidents.
Some accidents are caused by lack of familiarity with surroundings, for example, when visiting friends or relatives, or in holiday accommodation.
High risk age groups are young children and teenagers.
Why do accidents happen to children?
Children are often absorbed in their own immediate interests, they can be oblivious to their surroundings. They only have a limited perception of the environment because of their lack of experience or development. They are not aware of the consequences of the many new situations that they encounter daily.
Small stature
This may prevent a child from seeing above an obstruction or being seen by an adult.
Inquisitiveness
Curiosity and a spirit of adventure may lead a child into danger.
Bravado and horseplay
Boys are particularly prone to showing off and overreaching their abilities, especially among friends. Many accidents are caused by horseplay involving pushing, shoving and wrestling.
Stress
Tensions at home and emotional upsets caused by temper, jealousy and over excitement may cause a child to run blindly into danger. Such action may even be deliberate to seek attention.
Inexperience
A child's interpretation of a situation may be inaccurate and adults looking after small children should be aware not to expect too much of them.
Inadequate supervision
Children need constant supervision. Medicines, pills and toxic substances should be locked away and fires and stairs should be guarded.
Water safety
Safety messages come from The Child Accident Prevention Trust and The Royal Life Saving Society UK (particularly good for sourcing information for the safety of older children around water).
The messages in the bubbles on the board include:
Bath seats can topple or your baby can slip out.
Don't leave your baby alone in one for a moment.
Get everything you need ready before bath time.
Stay with your baby or young child all the time they are in the bath. Keep them in arm's length.
Don't rely on your toddler to keep an eye on the baby while you pop out for a towel. They are too young to understand the danger.
Drowning is silent.
We have also included a quiz for parents to take away and check their safety knowledge. This is available to download: Child Accident Prevention Trust bathroom safety quiz.
General messages
The number of children drowning in the bath increased from 4 in 2019-20 to 12 in 2021-22. Seven of these deaths were of babies under one and, in five cases, bath seats were being used.
Bath seats are not designed as safety devices and babies should not be left alone in them.
In 82% of the cases the child had been left alone in the bath.
The most common reasons for leaving a child alone are to take a phone call, leaving the room to get something e.g. a towel, confusion about who is supervising the child or attending to a sibling or other young children.
A child can drown in less than 3cms of water.
In the last five years, 119 children accidentally drowned in the UK.
There have been several tragic drownings of young children under the age of 1 year in the bath both nationally and locally.
A national case of a nine-month-old baby was found drowned in a few centimetres of bath water. He was left in his bath seat for just a few minutes while his mum fitted a plug-in diffuser in his bedroom to help his cold. She discovered him face down in the bath, with the seat unfixed. It had been firmly attached to the bath when she left. The coroner's report highlighted that "a bath seat must not be used as a safety device. Young children must always be supervised and be within arm's reach of an adult at all times".
We have also had the death of a baby girl aged seven months in Lancashire, due to drowning in the bath.
It’s not safe to pop out of the bathroom and leave a young child alone in the bath even for a few seconds. It is also easy to think that an older child can briefly look after a younger child or at least raise the alarm if something goes wrong. Older children shouldn’t be left in charge, they can’t be expected to know what to do if something happens and may not recognise the danger or react quickly enough. They may lack the strength or dexterity to get a younger child out of danger.
Water safety resources
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) - Water safety advice and tips
Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) - Water safety at home
Child Accident Prevention Trust - Watch out in water fact sheet
Button battery safety
The Child Accident Prevention Trust will send free resources for button battery safety.
Included in the pack is:
One large house poster highlighting which devices in each room may have a button battery
Several button battery flyers to share with families
A button battery lesson plan and several books to further educate children.
Statutory documents
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework is mandatory for all early years settings. It sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well, and are kept healthy and safe.
Changes to the EYFS safeguarding requirements from September 2025
The Department for Education (DfE) continually monitors and reviews safeguarding requirements for early years settings to ensure they are comprehensive and suitably robust to help providers keep children as safe as possible. A consultation on proposals to strengthen the EYFS safeguarding requirements was held between 22 April and 17 June 2024. There was strong support from respondents for all of the EYFS changes, with clear consensus that these will improve children’s safety and align with current best practice in early years settings.
From 1 September 2025, all registered early years providers must follow the new EYFS framework. Whatever your role and type of setting you work in, you’ll need to be working to the new framework.
Here is an overview of the changes that will be published in the new framework later in the year: