This page may contain additional navigation below.
Bath Spa Hosts Conference on Safeguarding Disabled Children
The safety of disabled children and child exploitation on the internet will be the focus of a major conference at Bath Spa University. The conference is the second on safeguarding children to be hosted by the University at its Newton Park campus.
At the event, on Tuesday 22 June, employers in the children's workforce sector, Bath Spa academics and other specialist speakers will also discuss a new training course for social care workers, Child Protection Studies, which was recently started by the University.
The new qualification is in response to widespread calls for an improvement in the quality of social work training following the death of Baby Peter. It allows social work assistants, family support workers, foster carers and others such as classroom assistants, nursery staff and police officers to build towards foundation and honours degrees while still working full-time.
Six modules on the course have been introduced, including one in child protection and others in safeguarding disabled children and interview techniques for social care professionals.
Professor Stephen Ward, Dean of the School of Education at Bath Spa University, said: "This conference is a milestone in the development of Bath Spa's integrated Child Protection programme. We welcome the endorsement that Sir Roger Singleton, Chief Safeguarding Adviser to the Government, gave at our last conference in January."
The keynote speaker will be Jon Brown, Head of Strategic Development (Sexual Abuse) for the NSPCC childrens charity.
There are places for around 300 students on the Bath Spa training programme, in which several local authorities are participating. These employers deliver the training for their own staff in their own centres, with the University providing accreditation.
The safeguarding initiative is a collaborative effort between Bath Spa and the multi-agency community in the public, independent and voluntary sectors. One of the organisations involved is David Niven Associates. David Niven, former chair of the British Association of Social Workers, devised the new qualification and is co-ordinating it for the University.
Press Release Issued 16 June 2010 by School of Education.