At least one child dies from abuse or neglect every week in the UK alone

  • Health & Safety
  • 40 languages
  • 55m

Learning outcomes

  • Learn how to work towards best practice in line with the Children's and Young Persons Act 2008
  • Learn how to recognise the signs of abuse in a child and the importance of a child centred approach
  • Understand the importance of reporting and recording circumstances or evidence of abuse

Covered in this course

Course contents

This training course is broken down into 5 sections

  1. 1
    Safeguarding Responsibilities
  2. 2
    Recognising Abuse in Children
  3. 3
    Responding to Abuse
  4. 4
    Recording Observations
  5. 5
    Reporting Concerns

Section 1

The beauty of safeguarding, which can be overlooked, is that by creating a trusting relationship with a child, they’ll likely choose you. But the responsibility doesn’t just lie with you, you have ample support around you – this is a multi-agency effort. Within your organisation, you’ve got your colleagues, your Designated Safeguarding Leads and your managers and you also have those outside of your organisation. This section will look at the legislation, children's legal rights, policies & procedures and your safeguarding responsibilities.

Section 2

In this section, we’re going to look at the common types of child abuse and the warnings that can suggest abuse is taking place. As you move through this section these subjects may start to feel a little heavy and you may experience information-overload, but the most important part of recognising abuse is remembering that harm is harm. It's important to remember that you will not be penalised for misdiagnosing the type of abuse – it’s just your duty to recognise the signs that suggest something isn’t quite right.

Section 3

Recognising that a child is being abused, or is at risk of abuse, can be very upsetting and it may be tempting to avoid the issue or convince yourself you’re worrying over nothing. But if your gut, your professional judgement or your common sense is telling you something isn’t right, it’s time to respond – and quickly. In this third section, we take a look at what to do if a child makes a disclosure and you need to respond directly to them.

Section 4

You need to report the matter to your DSL. You then need to make a detailed and accurate written record about what has happened. You must make a record even if the matter isn’t pursued on this occasion. Depending on the requirements of your organisation, the method of reporting this may differ. The key principles of a written record are: keep it clear, accurate and up-to-date. In this section, we’ll take you through what to do.

Section 5

Reporting means notifying relevant individuals and agencies if you’re concerned for a child’s safety or wellbeing. As a matter of course, this usually means reporting to a DSL and allowing them to take the next steps. In this section, we’ll look at why it’s crucial to report your concerns, and what individuals and agencies may be involved to safeguard a child.

About this course

Safeguarding children means protecting them from abuse and keeping them safe from harm. It means promoting their health and welfare, and helping them to grow up in a safe and supportive environment. This IIRSM approved course covers both level 1 and level 2.

As many as 1 in 3 children sexually abused by an adult never tells anyone, so it’s absolutely crucial that even if you occasionally work with children, you’re aware of the 4 R’s of child protection – Recognise, Respond, Report, and Record. This Safeguarding Children training course will help you identify and appropriately respond to the warning signs of child abuse, teaching you the importance of speaking up and acting quickly.

Safeguarding in Education settings (Also see our safer recruitment in education training) is crucial but this training is also relevant to Care, and Leisure sectors.

This Safeguarding Children Training covers both levels 1 & 2.

You can access our free worksheet that has been designed to accompany our online safeguarding children training course. In each section, there is a box for you to
tick when you have watched the relevant slide in our course. You can also take notes that will help you during your practical assessment at work.

You may also be interested in our other course, Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults. Alternatively, why not browse our full selection of Safeguarding courses?

The importance of Safeguarding Children Training

It's important that you comply with the law and understand the positive impact this training course can have on your organisation and employees.

Find out more

Available in 40 languages

All inclusive

Machine translated* content is included for free with all our popular courses

It covers LMS navigation, course transcripts and test questions. If you don’t see a course listed in the language you require, just let us know.

*Content which is not English may be machine translated and is for assistive purposes only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of translations.

Our most popular languages

Italian
German
Romanian
French
Polish
Lithuanian

Safeguarding Children Training certificate

Download and print

Each of our courses ends with a multiple-choice test to measure your knowledge of the material.

This Safeguarding Children Training course concludes with a 20 question multiple choice test with a printable certificate. In addition, brief in-course questionnaires guide the user through the sections of the training and are designed to reinforce learning and ensure maximum user engagement throughout.

As well as printable user certificates, training progress and results are all stored centrally in your LMS (Learning Management System) and can be accessed any time to reprint certificates, check and set pass marks and act as proof of a commitment to ongoing legal compliance.

What does my certificate include?

Your Safeguarding Children Training Certificate includes your name, company name (if applicable), name of course taken, pass percentage, date of completion, expiry date and stamps of approval or accreditations by recognised authorities.​

Please note if you are using our course content via SCORM in a third party LMS then we are unable to provide certificates and you will need to generate these in your host LMS yourself.

7,930 real user reviews

4.8

out of 5

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great course with all the important information

This user gave this course a rating of 5/5 stars

It was ok but certain things could have been better

The content and presentation of the course were excellent. The problem I had was that it took several “jabs” on the next button to move on to the next part/slide. So it’s a technological issue that I have with this course. As a practising primary school teacher with 34 years experience (and former DSL and Deputy Head) I know an awful lot about safeguarding already but obviously every year there are “tweaks” so I’m grateful for this course (I’m now doing supply teaching due to personal reasons). Thank you.

Very informative and succinct

I found it useful and easy to understand.

Very helpful course

This user gave this course a rating of 5/5 stars

Excellent and comprehensive training given in bite-sized chunks.

This user gave this course a rating of 5/5 stars

Very useful course

This user gave this course a rating of 5/5 stars

The course was excellent for anyone dealing with children and their welfare

This user gave this course a rating of 5/5 stars

Very Resourceful

Great learning piece; very detailed and easy to follow. The content is so resourceful and on point. Haven't had it better elsewhere! Thank you.

Why is this safeguarding children training important?

Compliance

It’s important that you comply with the law and know the ways in which it affects you and the way you work.

What is The Children’s and Young Persons Act 2008?

The primary purpose of the Children’s and Young Persons Act 2008 was to give boundaries and help local authorities and/or other entities to better regulate official intervention in the interests of children.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has 54 articles, each listing a different right that children have, and different responsibilities that the Government, and others, have to make sure that children have these rights. One of these rights is Protection from violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect and maltreatment: The Government must make sure children are protected from any type of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse or exploitation, while they are living with their parents or in the care of anyone else.

The Equality Act 2010 ensures equal treatment of everyone regardless of their protected characteristics, which includes age.

HM Government’s Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015 is a guide to inter-agency working document to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It stipulates the need for policies and procedures to this effect:

Training [is necessary] for persons who work with children or in services affecting the safety and welfare of children […] Training should cover how to identify and respond early to the needs of all vulnerable children

Working Together to Safeguard Children (2015), Chapter 1, Section 4

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