Working Together to Safeguard and Promote
the Welfare of Children and their Families.
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All agencies will take positive steps to ensure that their work with children and families promotes the five outcomes that are key to children’s and young people’s well being.
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All agencies will ensure that any providers of services to children and their families with which they contract (their contractors) also seek to promote the five outcomes.
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All agencies and their contractors will view requests for help from parents as signaling that the parent is taking responsibility for their child’s needs and not as a sign of parenting failure.
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Agencies will ensure that their staff respect the fact that parents will decide when to ask for help or advice and will respond promptly to such requests. However all agencies will also encourage their staff to engage with parents at an early stage when to do so may prevent problems and difficulties becoming worse.
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Agencies will ensure that that every child will be provided with services which will keep them safe, regardless of their legal status.
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Agencies will ensure that their staff understand that the only reasons for compulsory intervention in family life are: to safeguard a child from significant harm; to exercise functions under the Mental Health Act, or; to investigate evidence of the commission of criminal offences.
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Agencies who are involved in compulsory intervention in family life will ensure that, as far as is consistent with safeguarding and promoting the welfare of a child, they support families in making their own plans for the welfare and protection of their children.
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Each agency's staff need to consider the lessons from research (Chapter 9 of "Working Together) dealing with the impact of abuse, sources of stress for families, social exclusion, domestic abuse, mental illness, substance misuse and parental learning disability.
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