title: Child protection in schools: a survey of the training needs of Fife schoolteachers.
abstract: Teachers have an important role to play in child protection. This lies not only in the detection and reporting of possible cases of child abuse but also in multi-disciplinary teamwork, and in contributing to the ongoing support and monitoring of the abused child. Their role can only be properly carried out if teachers are equipped with the relevant skills. Appropriate in-service training in child protection for teachers is of key importance in both emphasising child protection issues and in promoting these skills in teachers. In order to guide the development of a training course for teachers in child protection, a survey of Fife teachers was carried out to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and practices of teachers with respect to a range of child protection issues. This confirmed that teachers consider child protection to be an important subject of direct relevance to their work as teachers. In-service training on this issue was almost unanimously welcomed. The study showed that although the knowledge of teachers regarding the signs of child abuse was reasonably good, in practice 40% of teachers did not feel confident in handling these issues. This has important implications for the design of training courses. Very few schools had established school child protection policies although the majority of teachers stated that such policies would be useful.
authors.affiliation: Directorate of Community Health, Fife Health Board, Glenrothes.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wigglesworth
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000517:prevention & control; D002669:Child Welfare; D004496:Education, Continuing; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D011640:Public Policy; D012606:Scotland; D013663:Teaching