Print off the assessment framework relevant to your part of the UK. Look at the summary triangle and consider what kind of contribution you could make from your professional knowledge.

Effective practice in safeguarding and protecting the welfare of children and young people has to be

reflective. Practitioners are dissuaded from being reflective when they believe, or are told, that they have no choice about a specific ‘do’ or ‘don’t’ in practice. Any advice from a fellow practitioner or advising professional should be received with courtesy and taken seriously. However, it is important to recall that such advice is often at the end of a long filtering process. All practitioners need to find the confidence to ask for the rationale behind a specific ‘do’ and certainly to ask, ‘Which law?’ when they are told that a specific ‘don’t’ is ‘illegal’ or ‘against the law’. Children are not well protected if practitioners, who deal with them day by day, feel they cannot ask questions after a blunt announcement of ‘It’s child protection policy.’ Every trainer, adviser or writer will not reach the same conclusion about some of the dilemmas that are hard to resolve within child protection. Practitioners have to be professional, bringing any inconsistencies into open discussion and not hiding behind comments such as ‘We were told to … ’ or ‘You can’t win; everyone says something different.’ See the example about physical contact on page 207.