Child protection
Report an emergency
Contact the police on 999, or our Emergency Duty Team on 01443 425012.
Report a child at risk
To make a full report, please use our form in Appendix F of ‘Corporate Safeguarding Policy: Protecting Children, Young People and Adults at Risk’.
Corporate Safeguarding Policy, and Request for Help Form.
Send forms for early help to:
Contact
Send child protection referrals to:
Contact
To talk to someone about a child’s welfare, please use the contact information below:
Contact
The process of safeguarding
Safeguarding means protecting health, wellbeing and human rights. It enables people to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. Safeguarding children and their welfare includes:
- protecting them from maltreatment, or bad things for their health or development
- making sure they grow up with safe and effective care
Definitions of child abuse
A child is abused or neglected when somebody inflicts harm, or fails to prevent harm. Children may be abused in a family, institutional or community setting by people they know or, more rarely, by a stranger. Abuse or neglect may affect children or young people up to 18, who would need protection via an inter-agency child protection plan.
Abuse can be:
- physical such as hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning, scalding, drowning, suffocating, or other physical harms including inducing illness
- emotional such as the persistent emotional ill treatment of a child which would cause severe, persistent adverse effects on their development
- neglect by failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to seriously impair the child’s health or development
- sexual by forcing or enticing a child or young person to engage in sexual activities, whether or not the child knows what is happening
- child sexual exploitation where children are sexually exploited for money, power or status
- financial, which could include misuse of a child’s direct payment, or education maintenance allowance (EMA)
Read more about abuse in Appendix B of our Corporate Safeguarding Strategy.
Cwm Taf Safeguarding Board
Child safeguarding is undertaken by Cwm Taf. This organisation is a partnership of:
- Wales Community Rehabilitation Company
- Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council
- Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
- South Wales Police
- Cwm Taf University Health Board
- Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust
- Interlink Rhondda Cynon Taf
- Voluntary Action Merthyr Tydfil
- National Probation Service Wales
Elsewhere on the web
Documents
- Corporate Safeguarding Policy (PDF 1438Kb)
- Safeguarding in Education, Welsh Government Guidance (PDF 937Kb)