1. Roles and Responsibilities

All adults, whether paid or unpaid, who work with or on behalf of children have a duty of care in that they are accountable for the way they exercise their authority, manage risk, use resources, and otherwise act to safeguard children. In carrying out their work the child's welfare must be paramount.

This means that they have a duty to:

• Keep children safe, and protect them from sexual, physical and emotional harm and neglect.
• Treat children with dignity and respect at all times.
• Take reasonable steps to ensure children's safety and wellbeing. Failure to do so may be regarded as neglect.
• Ensure that confidential information about children is only shared when it is in the child's interests to do so. The information shared must be proportionate to the perceived risk, and consideration should always be given to gaining informed consent from parents (where doing so will not expose a child to risk of harm or further harm or undermine the investigation into a serious crime). Information should never be used to intimidate, humiliate or embarrass a child.

These duties are fulfilled by:

• Developing respectful and caring relationships between adults and children.
• Consistently behaving as a professional adult in ways that demonstrate integrity, maturity and good judgement.