Safeguarding disabled children: Practice guidance

The Staying Safe: Action Plan made a commitment to target policies to protect disabled children and to promote their welfare, and specifically to launch new practice guidance on safeguarding disabled children in line with Working Together to Safeguard Children. This practice guidance updates an earlier resource published in 2006 on safeguarding disabled children.

This guidance should be read alongside Working Together, which sets out how all agencies and professionals should work together to safeguard and promote children’s welfare. It should also be read alongside the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families.

This document sets out practice guidance for Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) to ensure that in carrying out their duty to co-ordinate local work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and ensure the effectiveness of that work, the needs and circumstances of disabled children are fully understood and addressed. It also provides a summary of the research evidence about the vulnerability of disabled children to abuse.