Safeguarding Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to:

• Analyse and debate historical and current drivers that influence practice, policy and legislation in relation to safeguarding.
• Raise awareness of equity and diversity issues within partnership working.
• Analyse and evaluate a variety of assessment and risk assessment models and be able to apply these to practice taking into account relevant legislation and ethical considerations.
• Demonstrate an awareness of presenting signs and symptoms and the possible long-term effects of abuse.
• Extend, review and apply knowledge and understanding of the different categories of abuse.
• Critique and apply relevant concepts from current literature and research.
• Debate current safeguarding practice and your own professional accountability.
• Evaluate your own practice and service delivery in relation to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Indicative module content includes:

• Safeguarding in context: to include legislation and the historical and political drivers of current policy.
• Recognition and responding to abuse.
• Roles and responsibilities.
• ‘Working together’ within and across agencies.
• Holistic assessments and the assessment of risk.
• The impact of abuse on children and young people and their families, including adult survivors of abuse.
• The impact of abuse on vulnerable adults and their families and carers.
• Managing diversity in safeguarding children.
• Specific issues relating to practice, for example domestic violence, fabricated induced illness, self harm, anorexia, drug use and mental health issues.
• Communicating with children, young people and vulnerable adults and their families and carers.
• The importance of multi-agency and multi professional communication and working in relation to safeguarding.
• Strategies for working with complex families.
• Discuss and debate legal and ethical issues.

For the 2023/24 curriculum, our PGT/CPD modules will continue to be delivered using hybrid learning. This means that depending on the subject and content of learning and teaching, modules will mainly be delivered via a combination of face to face and online delivery (both live and asynchronous), as this has worked really well for our practice-based colleagues. It is important to recognise the majority of modules contain face to face contact time and attendance at the University will be required.

Learning and teaching methods include:

• Lecture
• Debate
• Group work
• Student presentation
• Self-directed learning
• Experiential learning
• Small group workshops
• Action learning set
• Discussion
• Reflective learning
• Tutorials
• ‘Expert’ speakers.

You will develop a poster analysing an actual or potential safeguarding issue for a child, young person or vulnerable adult. The poster will be supported by reference to the following:

• Key historical and current drivers that influence practice, policy and legislation in relation to safeguarding
• Relevant categories of abuse
• Presenting signs and symptoms and the possible long-term effects of abuse
• Issues related to equity and diversity including anti-discriminatory practice
• The assessment and risk assessment models used
• Relevant legislation and ethical considerations
• Relevant concepts from current literature and research
• A critical evaluation of safeguarding practice related to the issue identified in the flow chart
• An evaluation of  partnership working with children, families and across agencies
• Discussion of your own development needs in relation to safeguarding practice
• A proposal for practice developments to improve safeguarding practice.

You will upload your poster and a verbal 15 minute supporting critical discussion of key issues. You will also upload a reference list to support your work.

Take a look at the module reading list.