Quick Guide |
January 2012
This 'Quick Guide' must be read before accessing the body of these procedures.
Contents
- Display and Browser Options
- Structure of these Procedures
- Amendments
- How to Find a Chapter
- Terminology
- Keywords
- Compliance
- Contact us
- Copyright
- Printing and Retaining Copies
1. Display and Browser Options
People with a visual impairment may have difficulty accessing these procedures.
To change the size of the text/layout - please use these accessibility buttons
which are on menu bar on the left side of every screen. Click a larger button to increase your text size, the very largest being high visibility mode.
2. Structure of these Procedures
These procedures contain the revised Child Protection Procedures for the Milton Keynes Safeguarding Children Board.
The underlying values and principles that apply throughout these procedures are located in one chapter called 'Values', which users are required to familiarise themselves with before proceeding to the main body of the procedures. This chapter is available from the left hand side of the screen.
3. Amendments
This update contains the following changes:
| New Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Chapter 32, Safeguarding Children and Young People who may be affected by Gang Activity | This chapter is new. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Chapter 6.7, Disabled Children | A link to a summary of the government’s practice guidance was added. |
| Chapter 6.9, Forced Marriages | A flowchart has been added. |
| Chapter 6.18, Parental Substance Misuse | This section has been rewritten. |
| Chapter 7, Referral and Assessments | A link to the document: ‘Levels of Need when Working with Children. Young People and Their Families in Milton Keynes’ was added. |
| Chapter 20, Female Genital Mutilation | A link to the 2011 government guidance was added. |
| Chapter 27, Missing Child Policy | This chapter has been rewritten. |
| Chapter 35, Sexually Active Young People | This chapter has been rewritten. |
These procedures will be regularly updated; the next update will be in the summer of 2012. A planning meeting for this update has been arranged for March 2012.
Nominated managers in each agency will be responsible for seeking and collating proposals for amendments and development of these procedures. The contact name for any revisions is Lesley Mellor, MKSCB Administrator. Please email any change requests to her at mkscb@milton-keynes.gov.uk before the end of February 2012 if you wish them to be included in the next update.
When chapters are amended, this will be shown in the Contents List and a brief summary will be contained in this Quick Guide and the chapter concerned.
Any urgent amendments which arise between updates and cannot await the next scheduled edition, for example because they arise from a Serious Case Review or an inspection, can also be incorporated, following formal agreement by the procedures sub-group and the Independent Chair of the SCB.
4. How to Find a Chapter
Procedures and guidance are located in individual 'chapters' which are available from a 'traditional' Contents List - accessible via the button on the left hand side of the screen.
If you are not sure which chapter to look in, try 'Search' which will help you identify specific chapters and sub headings within chapters.
5. Terminology
We believe it is crucial to use consistent terminology, which we agree with individual customers, for example:
| Child | to refer to anyone under 18 years old |
| Child Protection Coordinator | to refer to the officer/s in Children’s Social Care who offer/s off line advice and/or provide/s chairing of child protection conferences (sometimes called the independent reviewing officer) |
| Children’s Services (Education) | to refer to the functional division within Children’s Services providing and coordinating educational services for children and young people |
| Children’s Social Care | to refer to the functional division within Children’s Services Authorities / Children’s Services providing support, protection and care services to children and families (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 uses this term rather than Children’s Services (Social Care)) |
| Designated safeguarding manager | to refer to the person responsible for the conference chairs, provision of specialist advice and protection planning |
| Duty social worker | to describe the departmental point of contact with respect to new referrals, closed or unallocated cases or cover provided for the unavailability of a named member of staff |
| Team/ Group Manager | to describe the manager responsible for a team of social workers or her/his assistant, or practice manager / supervisor |
| Identified officer | to refer to the individual within local authority and police responsible for the management of allegations against people working with children |
| Service manager | to refer to the second line manager to whom a team or group manager reports (sometimes called operational manager) |
| Social worker | to describe the practitioner with case responsibility (for children subject to a Child Protection Plan this will be the Lead Social Worker who will usually be a registered social worker) |
| Supervising social worker | (sometimes called link or family placement worker or fostering officer) to describe the practitioner working with foster carers |
6. Keywords
These procedures are accessed by practitioners from varying agencies, who may find terms that they are not familiar with. Therefore, a large glossary (Keywords) of terms such as Significant Harm (Try it: click on the highlighted text). We call them 'Keywords'. Once clicked, the definitions will appear in a new window or tab, depending on your browser. You can leave it open for reference, or close it using the "close" button at the bottom.
Many Keywords are highlighted in the body of procedures, but you can search for the Keyword you need: Go to the Keywords Index, on the left hand side of the screen. Or, use 'Search'.
7. Compliance
7.1 Regulatory Compliance
Every effort has been taken to ensure regulatory compliance. If you discover any errors or mistakes, please alert your manager or contact us.
7.2 W3C Compliance
These procedures meet the double A Standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), for example, it can be accessed by people with high levels of visual impairment. To find out more, click on 'Display Options' on the left hand side of the screen.
8. Contact us
If you have any comments or suggestions to make about these procedures please contact us by using the button on the left hand side of the screen, from anywhere within these procedures.
9. Copyright
The content of this website can be accessed, printed and downloaded in an unaltered form, on a temporary basis, for personal study or reference purposes. However any content printed or downloaded may not be sold, licensed, transferred, copied or reproduced in whole or in part in any manner or in or on any media to any person without the prior written consent of Tri-X-Childcare Ltd and Milton Keynes Safeguarding Children Board.
10. Printing and Retaining Copies
Each chapter includes a 
option so users will be able to print a chapter by clicking on the print icon shown (found at top right of the chapter). In relation to diagrams and flow charts which open in a separate window the print icon is usually at the bottom of the page.
However, as a general rule, practitioners should be discouraged from printing and retaining paper copies of individual chapters.
Printing of individual chapters should be limited to occasions when they are required for example for taking to a Court hearing or a meeting. In these circumstances, the paper copies should be recycled after the Court hearing or meeting. In any event, paper copies are only valid on the date of printing and the responsibility is on the practitioner to make sure that any printed copies are destroyed accordingly.
When chapters are printed from these procedures, the copy will be watermarked with the extent of its validity and a footnote will indicate the date of printing and the website address for the electronic version. The correct current version of these procedures will always be the electronic version of the chapter shown on the website.
End