Safeguarding children and protecting professionals in early years settings: online safety considerations

The Government has published guidance to help those who work in early years settings consider their practice and to take steps to safeguard both children and adults online.

With electronic devices with imaging and sharing capabilities being a part of everyday life for children, early years settings (birth to 5 years old) provide a vital foundation for online safety education in today’s digital age. To support early years settings, the UKCIS Education Working Group has developed two documents to help early years settings managers and staff consider their practice and to take steps to safeguard both children and adults online.

Safeguarding children and protecting professionals in early years settings: online safety considerations for managers

Safeguarding children and protecting professionals in early years settings: online safety guidance for practitioners


Keeping Children Safe in Education – updated guidance

The Department for Education has updated the statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment.

Disqualification under the Childcare Act 2006: updated statutory guidance

This revised guidance reflects the changes in the new legislation that came into force on 31 August 2018 and replaces the statutory guidance that was issued by the Department for Education in June 2016 and the draft statutory guidance issued in July 2018.

Details of the changes to the childcare disqualification arrangements made by the 2018 regulations are provided in Annex A of the appendices.

Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) and Local Safeguarding – Transitional Arrangements Statutory Guidance

The Department for Education has published two pieces of statutory safeguarding guidance which set the framework within which all practitioners should operate in order to protect children
from abuse and neglect and promote their best interests.

These are:
• revised Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance; and
• Local Safeguarding – Transitional Arrangements statutory guidance.

This is an important piece of guidance for agencies, organisations and practitioners to know what they must do individually and collectively to safeguard children. It sets out how they should work together in fulfilling this responsibility, including taking a child-centred and co-ordinated approach to safeguarding. At the same time, these documents support practitioners to exercise their expertise and judgment on how best to protect children and young people, and promote their welfare.

The opportunity has also been taken to make other minor changes to clarify processes or to reflect recent changes to policy, for example through the insertion of guidance on contextual safeguarding which includes protecting children from threats such as criminal and sexual exploitation.