Keeping children and young people safe, happy and healthy is a key priority for the team and our partners.
We aim to promote the welfare of children and families, support parents and carers who may need help and advice and offer relevant child protection and safeguarding training to our childcare providers.
On these pages you can find out more about child protection and safeguarding depending on whether you are a parent/carer or working with children. Click on the tabs to the left of this page for provider and parent/carer information.
You can also find out more information about safeguarding and child protection from the Dudley Safeguarding Children Board, details about safeguarding procedures and issues around safeguarding under the Early Years Foundation Stage
A copy of Your role and responsibilities in child protection can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
Dudley Safeguarding Audit Tool for Early Years and Childcare Settings
This “Self Audit Tool” has been designed to help you ensure that the service and your own professional practice are compliant with current legislation (Children Act 1989 & 2004) and best practice as set out in national guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010, Childcare Act 2006 and the Early Years Foundation Stage, Welfare Requirements.
This audit tool should help you to become knowledgeable and more confident in applying safeguarding.
Whilst it is essential to have child protection policies and procedures in place, safeguarding children and young people goes beyond this. It is about a system of preventative measures that all involved in childcare and education should adopt to ensure the safety and well-being of any child/young person with whom they are working. The system itself must also promote equality and diversity throughout the completion of the document.
This document should be completed by senior managers and practitioners with designated responsibility for child protection, along with whole team involvement. For childminders this can be completed individually. Support and guidance for completing this document is available from the Dudley Childcare Strategy Team.
Time scales and how to complete
It is envisaged completion will run alongside the Ofsted Inspection cycle. This should be reviewed and updated annually ensuring safeguarding and good practice is on going, monitored and maintained.
This working audit tool is designed to be user friendly and completed by senior staff within the setting or childminder.
The document layout is in a simple section format under headings relating to safeguarding and the welfare of children (see contents list for full details)
Completion of the audit tool is self explanatory with questions requiring yes / no answers and comments. Each section has supportive links which are live when completing electronically.
Disclaimer:Dudley Council believes that all information provided in this document is correct at the time of publication but takes no responsibility for accuracy of information published. Interested parties may copy the content of the auditing tool and documentation, however Dudley Council should be acknowledged as the source of the material.
If you could spare a couple of minutes please could you complete the Safeguarding Audit Toolkit Questionnaire. It should only take a couple of minutes and we would greatly appreciate your feedback.
