Safeguarding Children Toolkit for General Practice

This section of the toolkit looks at the role GP play in safeguarding and protecting children from abuse and neglect. It focuses on defining the terms child safeguarding and child protection, and looks at the policy and legislation in the United Kingdom.

Section 1 Introducing the Toolkit

Section 2 of the toolkit advises that good practice organisation ensures high quality of care and focuses on how to deliver it.

Section 2 Practice organisation [PDF]

Section 3 of the toolkit provides information for general practice when there is a need to work with other agencies. There is a focus on information sharing and referrals.

Section 3 Working together with other Agencies including Courts

Section 4 focuses on how preventing child maltreatment depends on early recognition of risk factors and warning signs. These signs may be well hidden, subtle and easily missed in the ten minute consultation.

Section 4 Recognition, Presentation and Prevention of Child Maltreatment in Primary Care

Section 5 of the toolkit looks at risks within the family, and how to be alert to domestic abuse, parental mental health, substance abuse and early trauma.

Section 5 Parent, Carer and Family Risk

Section 6 of the Toolkit focuses on the impact of communicating and working with families.

Section 6 Communication with children and families

Section 7 of the Toolkit focuses on improving the health of looked after children, young people leaving care and private fostering.

Section 7 Looked After Children (LAC)

Section 8 of the Toolkit focuses on child sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage.

Section 8 Sexual Violence Against Children and Young People

Section 9 of the Toolkit focuses on children and social media, gang abuse, trafficking, radicalisation as a form of abuse and hidden children.

Section 9 Children in Special Circumstances

Section 10 of the Toolkit focuses on case reviews between vulnerable children and family meetings, series incident and root causes analysis, the child protection review and the child death review.

Section 10 Case Reviews

Section 11 of the Toolkit focuses on commissioning child safeguarding in the NHS, and looks at case history.

Section 11 Commissioning Child Safeguarding in the NHS

Section 12 focuses on adult survivors and disclosures of historical abuse.

Section 12 Adult Survivors and Disclosures of Historical Abuse

Section 13 References

The downloadable tools offer practical advice and provide the user with a range of resources to adapt to their own practice requirements as well as frameworks developed by other organisations to aid diagnosis and decision making. All of the tools are available for download in PDF format.

Tool 1 Tips for Writing Practice Policies and Procedures

Tool 2 Specimen Safeguarding Policy for General Practice

Tool 3 Recommended Codes

Tool 4 Record Keeping Exercise for clinicians

Tool 5 Safeguarding Children Self-Assessment Tool 

Tool 6 Reflective Tools

Tool 7 Specimen report for Section 47 Reports and Case Conferences

Tool 8 Specimen From for Child Registration

Tool 9 Specimen form for vulnerable child leaving Practice

Tool 10 Named Safeguarding Children GP Skills, Competences and Role Description

Tool 11a Early Years Child Development

Tool 11 Important Milestones in Child Development

Tool 12 Information Sharing Poster

Tool 13 ChildSafe Trigger Tool

Tool 14 Health Visitor Safer Tool

Tool 15 Responding to Domestic Abuse, Guidance for General Practices

Tool 16 Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment Tool for Names Safeguarding GPs

Tool 17 MARAC Toolkit

Tool 18 Brook Traffic Light Tool

Tool 19 Spotting the Signs of Sexual Exploitation: The BASHH pro forma

Munro Report, click here for more information.

Find out what the Royal College of General Practitioners is doing in regards to Child and Adolescent Health here.