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New draft guidance to help social workers, police, NHS staff and other professionals improve the protection of children at risk of abuse or neglect has been launched by Children's Minister, Adam Ingram.

It will replace outdated guidance from 1998 and cover new areas of practice including online safety and child trafficking, as well as issues which have become more prominent in recent years such as substance misuse.

Among the key proposed changes in the guidance, which has been developed in collaboration with a wide group of practitioners, are:

• Introduction of more detailed advice on information sharing
• Expanding the range of organisations responsible for child protection
• Introduction, for the first time, of national timescales for holding and following up child protection case conferences
• Ensuring that unborn babies who are given a child protection plan are placed on the child protection register
• Ending the requirement for professionals to identify a specific category of risk when placing a child on the register

Mr Ingram said:

"The protection of children and keeping them happy, healthy, and safe from harm is a key priority for the Scottish Government. That's why we have introduced a range of changes from more robust, multi-agency inspections to the establishment of a national centre of expertise in children protection.

"Central to improving child protection further is ensuring that all organisations work more effectively together and have common understanding of the standard of service our children deserve. The new guidance sets out a national direction for how we expect children to be protected.

"It has been drafted in line with our Getting it right for every child approach - our programme of change to ensure that children and young people get the help they need, when they need it and emphasises the need for practitioners to work together to share relevant information and concerns so they can make the best decisions for each child. However, it also makes clear that it is not just those working with children who have a responsibility to report and respond to concerns - we all do.

Michelle Miller, Chief Social Work Officer at City of Edinburgh Council and President of the Association of Directors of Social Work, said:

"The protection of our children is a hugely complex task. The responsibility lies with individuals, with the public and with many organisations and agencies who need to work together to help keep children safe from harm.

"Support in the form of national guidelines is critically important. The process of developing the consultation draft has been reflective of the both the complexity of and our shared responsibility for child protection. ADSW very much welcomes this collaborative approach and looks forward to contributing further to the finalisation of the guidelines."

Detective Superintendent Lesley Boal, ACPOS Child Protection Working Group Lead, said:

"Everyone in Scotland has an important part to play to ensure that all our children are healthy, achieving, active, included, respected, responsible, nurtured and above all safe.

"In addition, safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children depends upon effective joined up working between agencies and professionals who have different roles and expertise. The wide ranging review of Scotland's child protection guidance for practitioners is another example of such an approach and I am delighted that the police officers who represented ACPOS on each of the workstreams have contributed throughout the drafting process."

The new guidance has been developed and drafted by a stakeholder group and is designed to provide a national framework for services and Child Protection Committees to use in developing their own local multi-agency protocols, training plans and procedures. It is also provides signposts for professionals on where additional information can be found.

Among the key changes are:

• Introduction of more detailed advice on information sharing, ensuring that when information is shared, a record is made of what, when, with whom and why and that where a decision is taken not to share information, those reasons are also recorded
• Expanding the range of organisations responsible for child protection, including adult health care providers and third sector organisations to reflect the fact that this is everyone's responsibility
• Introduction of national timescales for holding and following up child protection case conferences, proposing that initial case conferences take place as soon as possible and no later than 21 days from the notification of a concern and that participants receive the agreed child protection plan within five days of that conference
• Ensuring that during pre-birth case conferences, where professionals identify the need for an unborn child to have a child protection plan, that that child is placed on the protection register. This will help ensure that information about the unborn child is shared between local authority areas if the mother moves before the birth
• Ending the requirement for professionals to identify a specific category of registration, for example physical neglect, or sexual abuse, when placing a child on the child protection register, to encourage a move towards a focus on all the needs and risks to an individual child

The consultation will close on Friday September 17.

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