Legislation on safeguarding d/Deaf and disabled children
Statutory guidance across the UK highlights the responsibility of those in education, community and care sectors to safeguard all children from all forms of abuse and neglect.
The statutory guidance in all nations includes sections on safeguarding disabled children and young people. Find out more about child protection in:
See also Key guidance for schools in the UK.
Key legislation
The key legislation relating to the safeguarding of d/Deaf and disabled children in England is the Children and Families Act 2014. Part 3 establishes help for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including a single assessment process and personal budgets.
Under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, local authorities in England must also safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need. A child in need is a child who is unlikely to have, or have the opportunity to have, a reasonable standard of health and development without any support provided by a public authority. This may include having a disability.
In Northern Ireland, The Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 sets out how children in need and their families are supported, including giving information about the assessment of carers of disabled children.
In Scotland, Sections 23 and 24 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 refer specifically to disabled children. The Act requires local authorities to give disabled children the opportunity to lead lives which are as normal as possible. It also requires local authorities to promote the welfare of children in need.
In Wales, Section 15 of the Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act 2014 requires local authorities to minimise the effects of disabilities on disabled people.
The Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 embeds the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Welsh law, including giving disabled children the right to protection, participation and service provision.
Discrimination
In England, Scotland and Wales, the Equality Act 2010 provides protection from discrimination against disabled people, requiring service providers to make sure their service is accessible for disabled people to the same standards as non-disabled people.
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 provides protection from discrimination against disabled people in Northern Ireland. Schedule 8 prohibits discrimination against disabled people relating to goods and services.
Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires public authorities to promote equality of opportunity between disabled and non-disabled people.
Special educational needs
In England, Scotland and Wales, Part 6 of the Equality Act 2010 states that schools must not discriminate against a disabled person when conferring qualifications.
In Northern Ireland, the Special Educational Needs and Disability (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 provides guidance on safeguarding against the discrimination of disabled children in schools and educational settings and places a duty on schools to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for disabled pupils to participate in education.
Intimate care
Across the UK, the activities associated with providing intimate care to a child fall under ‘regulated activity’ if they are carried out without supervision. This means that anybody carrying out these activities as part of their work must have an enhanced (with barred list) vetting and barring check before they can begin. The activities include:
- taking a child to the toilet
- dressing a child
- washing or bathing a child.
This law is particularly important to disabled children who may require a greater level of intimate care than other children.
In England and Wales, procedures for intimate care are outlined in Section 64 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
In Northern Ireland, Part 1 of Schedule 2 of The Safeguarding of Vulnerable Groups (Northern Ireland) Order 2007 outlines intimate care and regulated activities with disabled children.
In Scotland, the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007 lays out the statutory guidance for regulated work with children, including intimate care.
> Find out more about vetting and barring checks in our safer recruitment section
Special measures for disabled child witnesses
Across all four nations in the UK, there are statutory ‘special measures’ that can be used for the purpose of taking evidence from a vulnerable witness, including disabled children.
These include:
- screening the witnesses from the accused
- giving evidence by live link
- giving evidence in private.
If a young witness is disabled, they may have particular difficulties attending court and giving evidence. In England and Wales, the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 introduced a range of measures to help children in these circumstances. Section 16 specifies the grounds on which a child may be eligible for assistance.
The Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 makes provision for assistance such as communication for witnesses who are disabled. The Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 raised the maximum age for eligibility for assistance from 17 to 18.
The Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2004 defines and outlines the provisions for vulnerable witnesses in Section 1.
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