Safeguarding children - information regarding Neglect

Information to help professionals working with, or caring for children/young people in an employed or voluntary role in safeguarding and promoting welfare.

Web Page to provide information about Neglect

This web page on Child Neglect aims to update you on our progress regarding the relaunch of the NSSP Neglect Strategy. The NSSP wants to ensure that we are able to identify children and young people, whose needs may be neglected by their care givers, at the earliest point so that appropriate services can be provided to address this and prevent the need for statutory intervention.

Neglect is the most common form of child maltreatment in England. The NSSP is committed to ensure the early recognition of neglect and improvement in agency responses to children and young people affected by neglect through strong and effective multi-agency leadership, to:

secure collective commitment to addressing neglect across all partner agencies and to demonstrate effective leadership in driving the appropriate system, culture and process changes required forward;
improve awareness and understanding of neglect across the whole partnership. This includes a common understanding of neglect and the thresholds for intervention;
improve the recognition, assessment and response to children and young people living in neglectful situations before statutory intervention is required, including the appropriate use of assessment tools;
ensure the effectiveness of service provision.

Neglected children may not speak out or tell anyone what is happening. They may hide and minimise the abuse they are suffering; they may need to keep quiet to survive.

Learning from published national case reviews highlights that professionals from all agencies must be able to;

Recognise the different types of neglect
Take timely action to safeguarding children
Understand the impact of cumulative and long term effects of neglect

Many SCR’s show that there are missed opportunities, professionals may individually have concerns about a neglected child, but too frequently these concerns do not trigger effective action. Ensure that your safeguarding knowledge is up to date.