Lambeth Council
Safeguarding children - parents and carers
Safeguarding adults
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding simply means keeping people safe from harm. It is about protecting children and adults from abuse or neglect. There are many different types of abuse.
Types of abuse that children can suffer include:
- physical abuse
- sexual abuse
- neglect
- emotional abuse
- domestic abuse
- bullying and cyberbullying
- child sexual exploitation
- child trafficking
- criminal exploitation and gangs
- female genital mutilation
- grooming
For more information on these types of abuse and how you can spot them, visit:
Types of abuse/neglect that adults can experience include:
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Domestic abuse
- Psychological or emotional abuse
- Financial or material abuse
- Modern slavery
- Discriminatory abuse
- Organisational or institutional abuse
- Neglect
- Self-neglect
For more information on these types of abuse, you can visit:
Who is responsible for safeguarding?
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. All our staff members play a role in safeguarding. Safeguarding is not just something we choose to do, it is also something we are required by law to do.
Keeping children and adults safe from abuse and neglect cannot be done by one person or one agency. At the heart of any safeguarding process is the child or adult who may be suffering abuse. We work in partnership with our patients who are, or who are at risk of, experiencing abuse as well as their families and advocates as appropriate.
We work closely with our health colleagues such as health visitors, the school nursing team, midwives, paediatricians, mental health teams and other hospital colleagues. We also work with our partner agencies locally such as child and adult social care, education and the police to ensure any child or adult suffering abuse can be supported and protected and any concerns about abuse can be properly investigated.