Influence of Legislation and Policies

Every Child Matters:   ECM act helps children from birth to 19years of age and involves everyone who works with children and young people. Practitioners and staff always support children with all backgrounds, there are five outcomes in this act and these are be healthy – enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle is important and schools need to play a leading part in health education. This includes questioning the value of snacks and the nutritional content of school meals. Stay safe – pupils need to feel that they are being protected from harm and neglect. Enjoy their lives and achieve their potential – pupils need to get the most out of life and develop the necessary skills for adulthood. Contribute to their local community – children and young people need to be involved in their local community and not engaging in anti-social or offending behaviour. Achieve a good standard of living – pupils must not be prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life. We will have to develop strategies to enable all pupils to reach their full potential and to break the cycle of poverty. This will ensure that you are providing the right service in order to meet children’s needs. Staff will need to be aware of the services in detail to know which one to provide and offer.   By knowing the policies and will therefore know the procedures as well which will help the children when it’s needed. Safeguarding legislation and government guidance says that safeguarding means; protecting children from maltreatment, preventing impairment of children’s health or development, ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and “undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.”