Statement Of Purpose And Principles

Bournemouth and Poole Local Safeguarding Children's Board is a multi-agency professional group which has statutory responsibility to co-ordinate local work between agencies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and to ensure the effectiveness of that work.

The LSCB is committed to ensuring that agencies work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children to high standards in three broad areas of activity.

Universal preventative work which aims to identify and prevent maltreatment or impairment of health and development and ensures children are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care.
Proactive work which aims to target particular groups ie children identified as in need or children potentially more vulnerable than the general population eg children living away from home, children in custody or disabled children.
Responsive work to protect children who are suffering or at risk of suffering abuse or harm.

Safeguarding work with children and young people should aim to help them achieve all of the five outcomes within Every Child Matters

Stay safe
Be healthy
Enjoy and achieve
Achieve economic well being
Make a positive contribution

The LSCB will achieve this through a shared commitment to:

promoting best practice and continuous improvement in the quality of safeguarding services;

developing and agreeing effective local policies and procedures for inter-agency work to safeguard children within the statutory framework and guidance;

ensuring that safe recruitment practices and procedures and effective training provision are in place for all staff working with children;

monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of inter-agency work to safeguard children and make recommendations for improvement where appropriate;

participate in the planning and commissioning of services to ensure they meet the safeguarding needs of children and families;

communicate to agencies, the voluntary and community sector and the local community the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and raising awareness of how this can be done;

undertaking serious case reviews in appropriate circumstances in order to act upon lessons learned and improve local procedures and practice.

The LSCB recognises that children and young people should be at the centre of all safeguarding work and will actively promote their involvement by:

ensuring that children are provided with an opportunity to express their views and wishes in their own words within the child protection process;
promoting the work of agencies that have contact with children and young people in raising children and young peoples' awareness of how to keep safe.

The LSCB will work in partnership with parents and carers and the wider community to safeguard children in the context of service provision for all children in need by:

enabling parents to express their views within the child protection process and taking account of their views;
working in partnership with parents and carers;
providing services to parents and carers to enable them to safeguard their child (ren) and have the necessary skills to promote their children's health and development;
promoting the effective prevention of the abuse of children through education, training and by raising public awareness;
providing the community with access to help and advice in a way that is easily understood.