The Child Protection Policy - 13

Next section.

15. Staff Responsibility

Staff should be clear to understand that they are not making a diagnosis, only receiving concerns. None of the signs listed above may actually prove that a child is being abused and these indications should not be taken as proof. They may be indicators, which when put into context, provide justification for action.

Emotional abuse is more than just the occasional criticism of a child. Abuse is a symptom of continued negative treatment, which ostracises or belittles a child. This is usually the result of extremes of inappropriate care by the parents and so very difficult to confront.

ALL abuse is emotional abuse irrespective of whether or not it is accompanied by physical injury, sexual abuse or neglect.

This is all terribly mixed up again. The paragraph is titled "Staff responsibility", but doesn't actually describe anything that the staff are responsible for, except that they should be clear that they are not making a diagnosis, but merely receiving concerns. Nothing is described about what they do with these concerns.

And the brakes on any action are clearly applied by the sentence "None of the signs listed above may actually prove that a child is being abused and these indications should not be taken as proof", implicitly suggesting that the staff member should do nothing unless or until he does have proof. It seems that the indicators must be "put into context" before action can be justified.

This is yet another demonstration that the policy is one long excuse for doing nothing.

And then the last 2 paragraphs go on again about emotional abuse and how all abuse is emotional abuse, again pointing the finger at parents. A description of emotional abuse should be in the section under that title. But for some unfathomable reason, it has ended up here.