Yes. This course is designed for professionals with regular contact with children, young people and families, or those with lead or advanced safeguarding responsibility, in line with the intercollegiate framework used across health and social care for structuring safeguarding training levels.

Yes. This course is fully online and self-paced, and can be completed on desktop, tablet or mobile. It combines Level 3 safeguarding knowledge with practical scenarios so you can apply what you've learned to real situations at work.

The main categories recognised in UK safeguarding practice are physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect, along with wider concerns such as exploitation and online harm. This course explores each category in detail, including the signs to look for.

Child safeguarding in England is underpinned by the Children Act 1989 and Children Act 2004, alongside the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026, which sets out how organisations and practitioners must work together to help, protect and promote children's welfare. Education settings also follow Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026.

Multi-agency safeguarding means local authorities, police, health services and education providers working together, sharing information and coordinating decisions to protect children. Under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, statutory safeguarding partners have an equal duty to make joint arrangements, and timely, proportionate information sharing is central to identifying risk early and preventing children from falling through gaps between services.

Stay calm, listen carefully without interrupting or asking leading questions, and reassure the child that they were right to tell you. You must not promise confidentiality. Record what was said as soon as possible in the child's own words, and pass the information to your designated safeguarding lead or the appropriate agency without delay. This course covers how to respond to a disclosure step by step.

A safeguarding referral is made to children's social care or, where there's immediate danger, the police, setting out your concerns clearly and factually. Depending on the level of need, this may lead to a Family Help response, a child in need assessment, or a Section 47 enquiry and risk assessment where a child may be suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. This course explains the referral process and what professionals can expect at each stage.

Every professional working with children has a responsibility to recognise potential harm, know their organisation's safeguarding procedures, and act on concerns promptly. Professional judgement plays a key role: guidance and thresholds inform decision-making, but practitioners are expected to use their own observations and reasoning, and to seek advice when unsure, rather than assuming someone else will act.