Child Protection Guidance 2021

Part 2A: Roles and responsibilities for child protection 49 National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 Version 1.0 September 2021 2.78 Police should also liaise with a number of adult services, where investigations dealing with adults may impact on children. For example, they may liaise with social services on issues such as youth justice, adult protection, children affected by parental problematic alcohol and/or drug use, anti-social behaviour, domestic abuse and offender management. 2.79 Officers should also be mindful of the need to ensure adequate care arrangements are in place when parents are detained, or cannot care for their children for other reasons. British Transport Police (BTP) 2.80 BTP, like other statutory agencies, has a responsibility for promoting the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children, and for taking positive interventions to protect them from harm. BTP applies a child protection and safeguarding policy and associated standard operating procedure which applies in Scotland (as well as England and Wales) for all police officers, police community support officers, police staff and special constables (collectively termed ‘employees’). Health services 2.81 NHS Boards will have designated lead roles for child protection, though titles may vary. This section describes overarching responsibilities for all health practitioners and describes some of the essential roles within a wide spectrum of services. 2.82 NHS Boards will support all health practitioners in upholding professional standards and regulations as outlined by their governing bodies. They will ensure that child protection processes and systems are embedded throughout the Board area and across acute and community services. This entails implementing a framework for governance, quality assurance and improvement of systems, and providing defined roles for clinical and strategic leadership of child protection services. 2.83 Boards will provide robust child protection services by ensuring: • there are clear clinical and care governance processes and systems in place. These will enable continuous improvement in practice, as well as learning from child protection reviews, including both significant and adverse case reviews • their NHS Board is represented by health professionals in designated child protection roles within inter-agency referral discussions (IRD Guidance – Part 3) • health staff have access to child protection advice and support from designated health professionals • there is a contemporary learning and educational framework that supports practitioners to build confidence and competence in discharging their duty to safeguard and protect children • there are mechanisms in place that enable organisational assurance that all health staff are supported in accessing learning and education appropriate for their role and scope of professional practice • designated health staff are available to contribute where appropriate to multi-agency learning. • that arrangements are in place for the support of those who have suffered abuse and neglect, from the point this is known by agencies (The knowledge and skills framework (2017) ).