Child protection

Child protection requirements

Museums generally fall outside of the Protection of Children Act 1999 and so are not required to register with the Local Authority like schools or playgroups. Museums are seen as ‘safe’ places for children to be and genuine incidents are exceedingly rare, but you should not be complacent about this issue. It is one of those areas where you perhaps don’t think you need a policy or procedures until something happens when it becomes too late. It is also important to protect staff from malicious allegations or basic misunderstandings and these issues should be taken into account when thinking about Child Protection safeguards.

The ideal situation would include the following:

A Child Protection Policy should include:
* Codes of Conduct expected from both adults and children
* Procedures to be followed in normal activity and where an incident (or alleged incident) has occurred
* Police Disclosure of all members of staff who could possibly come into contact with children
* aff training on Child Protection issues
* Accessible information to all staff of requirements and expectations
* Having a ‘designated person’ to be responsible for Child Protection Issues.

Photographs

It is an unfortumate fact that sometimes images of children can be used in inappropriate ways, and therefore new guidelines have been introduced by schools and education authorities to make sure that children are protected from this.
Some schools do not allow any photos to be taken of children at all, for any reason. If schools do want to take photos of their pupils doing activities for display purposes they have to get written permission from the child's parents before it is permitted. Some schools get permission slips as a matter of course every term while others ask for permission for specific trips out or activities.
If you want to get some pictures for any reason you should check in advance with the teacher in charge to ensure that it is acceptable.
Similarly, if you want to send out a press release showing children in the museum you must get written permission from parents.

Child protection information sources

Government guidelines can be found in a document called ‘Safe From Harm’ on:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/harm.html

You can also get information from the NSPCC booklet called “STOPCHECK” from:

NSPCC Publications,
Weston House,
42 Curtain Road,
London
EC2A 3NH
020 7825 7422

publications@nspcc.org.uk

In Cornwall there is an agency set up specifically to deal with Child Protection Issues who will give advice, look through and comment on your policy and provide training:

The Joint Consultancy Team
Pendragon House
Gloweth
Truro
TR1 3XQ
01872 241735

Other local authorities will also have their own Agencies.
There are also various policies published on the internet which may help you to design one that suits your site including CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library Information Professionals) which is particularly comprehensive and useful.

http://www.cilip.org.uk/advocacy.spc.html

The Local Police Department will have an Officer specifically designated as the person who deals with Child Protection Issues, and there will also be A Social Services Children’s Team in your area. Names and numbers of your local support should be included on a Policy and displayed or easily accessible by all staff.

Guidelines for employees

It is essential that all employees and volunteers read the full Child protection Policy (see below) but it is also useful to have a set of more succinct procedural guidelines on display or easily accessible to all museum staff in their immediate working environment, for ease of access, including relevant phone numbers and names.

It is also useful to have a further, more detailed set of ‘Good Practice’ guidelines for those members of staff who will be working DIRECTLY with children doing activities and workshops where staff, children and accompanying adults need to know where the boundaries of behaviour are set.

The following policy, procedures and guidelines can be used as templates for you to write your own policy.

NB While the policy includes details of ‘Good Practice’ and ‘Procedures’ it is a good idea to make these easily accessible to staff in a condensed for them to refer to in a more informal way – perhaps have copies in strategic places around the museum rather than tucked away in the office. Samples of these shorter documents are also included here.

Specimen child protection policy

You can download the following three pdf files by clicking on the following links:

Specimen Child Protection Policy. pdf link

Procedural Guidelines to be kept easily available for reference to during noemal activity andin the event of any incident occurring. pdf link

Good Practice Guidelines for Education Workers. pdf link

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