Child: the term “child” is used to include all children and young people up to the age of 18. Someone who has not yet had their 18th birthday.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as:

• Protecting children from maltreatment; Preventing impairment of children’s health and development;
• Ensuring that children are growing up with safe and effective care;
• Enabling children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

Child Protection is a part of safeguarding and refers to the activities undertaken to protect specific children who are suffering or are at risk of suffering Significant Harm.

Significant Harm: "Harm" means ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development, including for example, impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another; "Development" means physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development; "Health" means physical or mental health; and ‘Ill-treatment’ includes sexual abuse and forms of ill-treatment which are not physical.

Child Abuse and Neglect: forms of maltreatment of a child. Somebody may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting, by those known to them or, more rarely, by a stranger. They may be abused by an adult or adults, or another child or children.

Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child.

Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may feature age and developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill- treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying, causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children.

Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, including prostitution, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative e.g. rape, buggery or oral sex or non-penetrative acts. They may include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual online images and photos, watching sexual activities, or encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.

We are becoming increasingly aware of the offence of viewing or downloading abusive images of children from the Internet. This is not a “victimless” crime but is both evidence of abuse taking place and is a criminal offence. It should be referred on in all cases.

Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse. Once a child is born, or at any age, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:

• provide adequate food, clothing and shelter (including exclusion from home or abandonment);
• protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger;
• ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate carers);
• ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment.

The above definitions are from Working Together to Safeguard Children (2006).

Domestic Violence: this term is used to describe the physical, sexual or emotional (including verbal and financial) abuse between adults who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality. This form of abuse effects both the victim, who by the very nature of the offence is a vulnerable adult in this context, and any children in the household. In 2005, the Adoption and Children Act 2002 extended the legal definition of harming children to include harm suffered by seeing or hearing ill-treatment of others, especially in the home.

Vulnerable Adult: a vulnerable adult is a person aged 18 or over, "who is or may be in need of community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness; and who is or may be unable to take care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation." (Who decides)

Section 2 ‘No Secrets’, Department of Health and the Home Office (2000)