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<p>Our latest guidance on supporting vulnerable children is available here:<br><a
href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people</a><em>.</em></p><p>We
are committed to ensuring the safety and protection of vulnerable children and young
people, particularly during the current period. This is why education settings remained
open for these children and local authorities are maintaining contact with them.</p><p>Children’s
social care guidance states that we expect local authorities and social workers to
make judgements about visiting vulnerable children. Within the statutory framework,
they should prioritise children’s welfare as paramount, balancing the risks to children,
the risks to families and risks to the workforce. There are many ways to keep in touch
with a child, young person or family without physical face-to-face contact and it
is expected that these will be utilised appropriately and proportionately in response
to the risk assessment undertaken for the child on a case by case basis. The guidance
is available here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-childrens-social-care-services/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-local-authorities-on-childrens-social-care"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-childrens-social-care-services/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-local-authorities-on-childrens-social-care</a>.</p><p>To
ensure children and young people can maintain contact with a social worker, we are
providing laptops and tablets to children with a social worker who do not have access
to a device otherwise, either privately or through school. We are also providing 4G
wireless routers to children with a social worker at secondary school in order to
support them to maintain contact with their social worker and/or access remote education
at home.</p><p>The department’s safeguarding guidance sets out that a school’s child
protection policy should be updated to reflect the arrangements in place to keep children
not physically attending safe, especially online, and how concerns about these children
should be progressed. In addition, the advice sets out that the Designated Safeguarding
Lead (or deputy) should provide support to teachers and pastoral staff to ensure that
contact is maintained with children (and their families) who are not yet returning
to school. The guidance is available here:<br><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-safeguarding-in-schools-colleges-and-other-providers/coronavirus-covid-19-safeguarding-in-schools-colleges-and-other-providers"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-safeguarding-in-schools-colleges-and-other-providers/coronavirus-covid-19-safeguarding-in-schools-colleges-and-other-providers</a>.</p>
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