Welcome to the Bath and North East Somerset Children's Services Procedures Manual

Welcome to this update of B&NES Children's Services Policies and Practice Guidance. In it you will find all the information necessary to support you in your day to day work. It consists of different sections which you can access from the menu bar. The chapters in this manual should always be read in conjunction with the relevant local procedures and guidance, which are available in the B&NES Guidance section of the manual.

B&NES Children’s Service recognise that Government guidance and regulation documents use terms such as ‘LAC’ and ‘Contact’ which are not in keeping with our systemic model of practice where we prefer to use the term ‘child in care’ and ‘family time’. It is not currently possible for us to request amendments to be made to such documents.

• Main Policies – this contains our key policies and ensures that we comply with the law and statutory guidance when safeguarding the needs of the children and families we work with. This guides our social work practice and is updated every 6 months;
• B&NES Guidance – this contains local practice guidance, templates, forms and other information that supports and complements our main policies;
• South West Child Protection Procedures – in this section you can access the multi-agency Safeguarding Children Partnership procedures that we have signed up to with other local authority partners. This ensures that we can work in a consistent way across the region in many key areas of our work.

Note to all staff: If you are sharing documents from this database please share the link and not download the whole document as this will ensure that the most recent version is being circulated.

You can find out more about using this manual by clicking 'Using this Manual'.

If you have any queries or questions about any of the information in this manual please contact Liz O’Gorman Liz_O'Gorman@BATHNES.GOV.UK.