Safeguarding for Children
It’s important to understand at this stage that the phrase
‘safeguarding for children’ can mean two things. In cases
where mandatory and statutory training is differentiated,
mandatory training is of the type that an employer
believes is essential to carrying out the role safely and
effectively, but it isn’t necessarily legally required or
a matter of compliance. Statutory training on the other
hand would be training that must legally be completed, so
that the organisation is meeting their obligations when it
comes to governing bodies such as the CQC, or laws such as
the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA).
However, in the care industry, it’s very common for the
term 'safeguarding for children’ to refer to any kind of
training that an employee must undergo, whether it is
training deemed essential by the employer for the purposes
of effectively carrying out the role, or it’s training
that must legally be completed. If you’re ever unsure
about which definition is being used, check with the
employer, authority or training provider. However,
confusion between the two terms is usually unimportant, as
in all scenarios it means training that has to be taken.