CA2

Current Trends in Education: Tutorial Papers: Template

Leader: Kevin Maye

Student Name
Áine Birch

Tutorial Paper Number (1 or 2)

2

Reading Article Reference

Children First; National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children

Article Summary (1 A4 page)

Both the Children First Act of 2015 and Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and
Welfare of Children are referred to as Children First. It is a general term that refers to
recommendations, legislation, and their application. Children First: National Guidance for the
Protection and Welfare of Children (2017) is a document for everyone, including, members of the
public, employees, professionals or volunteers, that helps people to identify and report child
abuse and neglect and effectively deal with the concerns. This document outlines the four main
types of abuse – physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and emotional abuse. The document also
outlines the steps that should be taken to ensure that the young person is kept protected.
Additionally, it outlines the legal obligations for mandated persons and organisations who have
been designated by the Children First Act 2015, as well as information on how the statutory
authorities respond to reports of concerns about children.
Tusla became to agency responsible for child protection and welfare services in 2014 but before
this any concerns would have been dealt with by HSE social work teams. For social workers who
work in Tusla, Gardaí, and other front-line employees when dealing with suspected abuse and
neglect, Children First lays out precise protocols. It emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary and
interagency collaboration in managing worries about the welfare and safety of children.
The Children First Act 2015, provides key information regarding the protection of children,
including:
 A requirement for child safety and the creation of a Child Safeguarding Statement for
organizations offering services to children;
 Mandatory reporting of child safety issues to the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) by
specified groups of people (mandated persons);
 A mandate that mandated individuals "provide to the Agency such information and
assistance as it may reasonably demand" in order to help the Child and Family Agency
 assess a risk to children's safety;
 The Non-Fatal Offences against Person Act 1997 was amended to remove the reasonable
reprimand defence. This implies that the defence of reasonable chastisement will no
longer be available to someone who uses corporal punishment on a child.
 Establishing a legal foundation for the Children First Interdepartmental Group.

The main goal of Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children
2017, is to assist the general public in recognizing child abuse and in reporting a valid concern
about a child's welfare or protection. The Guidance outlines the non-statutory duties that
everyone has and that were already in place under the prior guidance. Additionally, it outlines the
legal requirements for organisations and certain professions under the Children First Act.

Critical Reflection on the Article (1 A4 Page)

After analysing and reflecting on the Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and
Welfare of Children, I feel I have learned a lot about the importance of having acts like these in
place. Over the past few days, I have found a lot of information relating to child protection, there
are many summaries and documents online which I found were beneficial to read, although it was
slightly overwhelming to begin with. The documents clearly outline the legal requirements for
organisations and certain professions under the Children First Act, in my opinion it is very
important that these documents are carefully analysed by anyone working with children or anyone
who may have a concern about a child or young person, it is important that people know who they
can contact regarding a concern like this.
I think the document is clearly laid out and easy to understand. It is divided into six chapters, and
it is very easy to find the sections you are looking for. Page 4 of the document is dedicated to
helping people understand how to use the document, it briefly describes the contents of each
chapter and who will benefit from reading each chapter, this makes the whole document much
easier to navigate. The document explains the four main types of abuse – emotional abuse,
neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse, it goes into detail about each type and gives examples of
how they could be identified.
At the beginning of each chapter, the document outlines the main aims of the chapter, I think this
is very beneficial to the reader as they can read the aims before reading the full chapter, this will
help readers to see if the information they are looking for will be covered in the chapter.
One thing I found about this document is that it is very text heavy, which I think could be
overwhelming for some people, but as I mentioned previously, it is laid out in such a way that
information is easy to find.
In conclusion, I found this document very informative, and I believe it should be carefully read by
everybody, not only people who are working with children, everybody should be aware of the
signs of child abuse and know exactly what to do if they have a concern about a child or young
person.

List of References
DCYA. (2017). National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children. Retrieved

from

https://www.tusla.ie/uploads/content/Children_First_National_Guidance_2017.pdf
Gov.ie - Children First. (2019). Retrieved from Www.gov.ie website:

https://www.gov.ie/en/policy-information/d1b594-children-first/