Always Children First – Child Safeguarding Awareness Foundation Training

Children First is National Guidance that promotes the protection of children from abuse and neglect. It states what organisations need to do to keep children safe, and what different bodies and the general public should do if they are concerned about a child’s safety and welfare.

Child protection and welfare training for the early years sector in Wicklow is delivered by Wicklow County Childcare Committee. The role that early years practitioners have in the lives of children and their families means that they are uniquely placed to recognise when there are concerns about the safety, welfare or well-being of a child. Early years practitioners and services also have a responsibility for safeguarding the children in their care through their policies, procedures and practice.

This updated one-day accredited training course

• looks at what constitutes child abuse, roles and responsibilities in reporting child protection and welfare concerns, child protection policy and safe work practices and
• incorporates the updates from the Children First Act 2015 regarding Mandated Persons and developing a Safeguarding Statement.

This is a Child & Family Agency accredited module that has been developed for the early years’ sector.  Certification is valid for three years.

 

At present the updated national Refresher module is in development and will be not be available for delivery until 2019.  In the meantime we wish to advice people who wish to refresh their training that:

• They should complete the Tusla online course – Introduction to Children First
• They are welcome to attend the 6 hour Always Children First course if they would prefer to attend training now.
• The Refresher Training is to allow practitioners to refresh their knowledge after 3 years.  There will be an allowance with this time limit to allow for the fact that there has been a break in availability of the National Always Children First Refresher Training.
• The National Children First Committee are flexible about the 3 year time limit but anyone who attended Always Children First Training 4 years ago (or more) is required to attend the full course.

The next available dates for the Foundation training will be in 2019, dates TBA

The training is FREE and places are limited to two per service and only available to persons working in Childcare in county Wicklow.