Glossary

Abuse
A deliberate act of ill-treatment that can harm or is likely to cause harm to a child's safety, well-being and development.

Agency
An organisation in the statutory or voluntary sector where staff, paid and unpaid, work with or have access to children and/or families.

Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board (ACPC)
The body established to co-ordinate action to protect children from abuse. The ACPC has an extensive role and has several subgroups looking at practice issues, training, and so on. From April 2006 the ACPC will be called the Safeguarding Children Board.

Child and Young Person's Development
How babies, children and young people grow and develop - physically, intellectually, linguistically, socially and emotionally.

Child in Need Planning Meeting
This meeting helps establish what might be needed to assist a young person, felt to be 'in need, and decide who is going to deliver the service and to what timescale.

Child Protection Plan
The aim of the plan is to:-

• Safeguard the children from further harm
• Promote the child's health and development
• Provided it is in the best interests of the child, to support the family and wider family members to promote the welfare of the child.

Child Protection & Review Unit
A team in social services in which principal officers (also known as independent reviewing officers) act as sources of advice and guidance. They also act as independent chairpersons for conferences and statutory reviews.

Child Protection Register
The register which records the children in the local area who are 'at risk' of significant harm, usually subject to a child protection plan.

Child Protection Review Conferences
These ensure that children on the child protection register remain monitored and the child protection plan remains valid. The first conference should be held within 3 months of the initial conference. Further reviews should take place within 6 months of each other for as long as the child's name remains on the child protection register.

Children in Need
Children who are unlikely to reach satisfactory levels of health or development without the provision of services.

Communication
The exchange of thoughts, messages or information - using spoken language, body language, tone of voice and gestures that demonstrate listening and understanding.

Concern
A suspicion or a belief that a child may be in need of help or protection.

Core Group
The core group can consist of professionals from all agencies and services. It meets at more regular intervals than the child protection review conference. The core group is responsible for developing the child protection plan and implementing it with the key worker. The core group should include the key worker, family members and professionals or foster carers who have direct and regular contact with the family, and possibly the child.

Engagement
Involving the child, young person and family members in the design and delivery of services and decisions that affect them.

Information sharing
Passing on relevant information to other agencies, organisations and individuals that need it in order to deliver better services to children and young people.

Initial Assessment
Assessment by social services carried out within 7 working days of referral.

Initial Assessment Team
The team that deals with referrals regarding a child and which carries out the initial assessment and investigation leading up to an initial child protection conference.

Initial Child Protection Conference
A conference called if a S47 enquiry establishes that a child has been subject to risk or is at risk of significant harm. The conference decides whether the child's name is placed on the child protection register, a key worker is appointed and a core group established to deliver a child protection plan.

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Inter-Agency Working
Agencies, organisations and individuals working together.

Looked After Children
Children who were previously known as children 'in care'. They may be accommodated voluntarily or by Care Order and placed with foster carers, parents, other family members or in residential homes.

Parents/Carers
Includes those who have parental responsibilities as defined in law and those who have care of a child, for example, foster carers and co-habitees.

Practitioners
Staff who work directly or indirectly with children, young people and/or families and can include (but is not exclusive to) police officers, doctors, nurses, teachers, nursery staff, social workers, therapists, dentists, youth leaders, leisure and recreational workers, housing staff, and staff who work in criminal justice, mental health or drug and alcohol services. It can also refer to volunteers who come into contact with children.

Public Law Proceedings
Orders sought by the local authority under the Children Act - for example, a Care Order, Supervision Order, and Emergency Protection Order.

S47 Enquiry
The enquiries that the Local Authority must make if they believe a child may be suffering significant harm. There is also a duty on all other agencies to share information with social services during this investigation. This is to help with an assessment and to decide if a child may be in need of protection or be at risk of significant harm.

Safeguarding Children
All agencies working with children, young people and their families taking reasonable measures to ensure that the risks of harm to children's welfare are minimised; and where there are concerns about children and young people's welfare, all agencies and individuals take all appropriate actions to address those concerns.

Serious Case Review
A review which is held when a child dies and abuse or neglect is known, or suspected, to be a factor in the death. The Safeguarding board should consider a review when a child sustains a potentially life-threatening injury or serious and permanent impairment to health and development, or has been subjected to particularly serious sexual abuse; and the case gives rise to concerns about working between agencies which protect children.

Strategy Discussion
This is a meeting between various agencies to share information and to agree on strategies to safeguard a young person.

Working Together to Safeguard Children
Guidance published by the Department of Health, Home Office and Department of Education and Skills setting our how all agencies and professionals should work together to promote children's welfare and protect them from abuse and neglect.

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