Safeguarding and Promoting the Welfare of Children - Essay Example

As a result of research it was suggested that yhe current population of UK is approximately 59 million people. Of this population, about 15.8 million people are children. Researchers have observed that the proportion of children has been on decrease from the 1971’s 25 percent to the 1991’s 20 percent, even as the average population becomes older. Within the heavily populated country, the population is characterized by wide variation in terms of standards of living as well as the environment between the towns, the cities and the rural areas.

According to the 1999 Child Poverty Action Group’s research, it was estimated that about 30 percent of children lived in poverty in United Kingdom. The proportion of the children living within households that are less than national income’s average had doubled since 1970s. Instead of poverty reducing as it would be expected in the country, the increase in population has also been parallel to the increase of poor people in UK, a condition that has immense negative effects on children, affecting their welfare and thus requiring immense attention.

The government has been active in laying down policies and strategies of overcoming the challenges that children are going through in the effort to survive in the country. Among the sectors that the government has directed attention is the education sector, the health sector and the economic sector. The welfare of children in the UK cannot be discussed in the absence of having an understanding of the government’s efforts towards establishing policies and measures to respond to the challenges of the three sectors.

The government has actively been involved in preparing frameworks that would play very significant roles in helping parents to respond and tackle issues affecting the children and the young people. According to Jeremy (2011), a health editor in “The Independent”, over the past three decades, the number of children’s deaths as a result of assaults in the UK has dramatically decreased. Jeremy attributed the decrease to the increase of social workers in the society enlightening and empowering people on children’s rights and welfare, the increase of publications for guardians and parents on childrenwelfare and the establishment of policies on children rights in the UK constitution.

Researchers in the UK have observed that deaths resulting from assaults of children have dramatically dropped from the three children per week in 1974 to the current one child per week in the 2008 statistics. The current findings plays very significant roles of watering down the perception in the society that the present-day polices in the UK do play any significant role in the fight of children abuse (Jeremy, 2011). The present-day polices have inclined towards increasing awareness in the society about children rights, categorically explaining the implications of child assaults to not only the guardians and the parents, but also to other significant individuals such as teachers who spend significant time with children (Jeremy, 2011).

The objective of this study is to determine whether the current policies in UK have been successful in safeguarding and protecting the welfare of children in the country. This paper shall explore various policies that govern the children rights in the endeavor to establish their effectiveness in realizing their objectives. The study shall explore a number of literatures, including books, journal articles, magazines, website articles and other credible publications on the subject matter (DfES, 2004).

Thesis Statement: Even though the UK government has made great progress in establishment of policies of safeguarding and protecting children welfare, the policies have not been effective