Safeguarding children and young people in local communities: A WISERD Local Knowledge in Context project

This study, carried out between 2009 and 2011, was set within the context of the safeguarding children policy agenda, particularly the notion that child protection is ‘everybody’s business’. The research aimed to explore everyday safeguarding of children at neighbourhood level, including how safeguarding is seen, experienced and carried out by residents, community leaders and professionals. In the research, safeguarding was seen as a concept that included, but was broader than, child protection. In the Welsh Assembly Government’s guidelines for professionals ‘Working Together’ (Welsh Assembly Government, 2006: 6), safeguarding is ‘Protecting children from abuse and neglect; preventing impairment of their health or development; and ensuring that they receive safe and effective care; so as to enable them to have optimum life chances’. In other words, safeguarding includes statutory child protection investigations and interventions, the prevention of abuse and a more general imperative to optimise children’s well being, now and in the future.