Standards – a new baseline for interagency training and education to safeguard children?

In April 2003, a research team drawn from the nursing (Salford Centre for Nursing, Midwifery and Collaborative Research) and social work (Salford Centre for Social Work Research) research centres at the University of Salford undertook a research project which explored the nature of standards of education and training in interagency work in England. This project was sponsored by the General Social Care Council (GSCC), which reported to the Department of Health and the new safeguarding children section of the Department for Education and Skills. The project came about as a direct result of the continuing difficulties in interagency collaboration which were highlighted in the Laming Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié (Lord Laming, 2003). The timescales for undertaking the work were significant. Because the project was to feed into the process of developing Keeping Children Safe (DfES et al., 2003), the Government’s direct response to the Victoria Climbié Inquiry and the Green Paper Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003), effectively the relaunch of the Government’s child care agenda, the research was to take place between April and September 2003