Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) | a behavioural disorder in children and young people. Core symptoms include developmentally inappropriate levels of activity and impulsivity and an impaired ability to sustain attention. |
Case Conference | where a number of professionals meet to discuss a case that is of concern. |
Child | legal classification of person aged under 16 (or under 18 with a current supervision requirement from a children's Hearing). |
Child Assessment Order | requires parents or carers to produce a child and allow any assessment needed to take place to help professionals decide whether they should act to safeguard the child's welfare. |
Child Protection Committees | monitor and regularly review local inter-agency child protection procedures and help different agencies improve understanding of each others roles and functions in child protection. |
Child Protection Order | authorises the applicant to remove a child from circumstances in which he or she is at risk or retain him or her in a place of safety. |
Child Protection Plan | agreed inter-agency plan outlining in detail the arrangements for attempting to ensure the protection of a child and supports to the family. |
Child Protection Register | a formal list of names of children where there are concerns about the possibility of future abuse and where a child protection plan has been agreed. |
Children's Panel | panel of trained lay people to which children who have committed offences, or who are in need of care and protection can be referred. |
Children's Hearing | considers the child's behaviour or problems and needs with professionals and families, and makes decisions about what actions to take. |
Compulsory Measures of Supervision | statutory arrangements for monitoring and intervening where necessary. |
Domestic Abuse | the physical, sexual, and/or mental and emotional abuse of one person, usually a woman, by a partner or ex-partner, usually a man. It can also occur between same-sex partners. Children and young people witness, and are by, domestic abuse and there is some correlation between domestic abuse and the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children. |
Emotional Abuse | occurs where there is failure to provide for the child's basic emotional needs such as to have a severe effect on the behaviour and development of the child. |
Exclusion Order | requires the removal of a person suspected of harming a child from the family home. |
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) | comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons. |
Foetal Abuse | where a foetus is damaged in utero by acts of omission or commission. |
Forced Marriage | a marriage conducted without the valid consent of both parties, where duress is a factor. |
'Grounds' | trigger conditions one of which has to be satisfied before a children's Hearing can consider a case. |
Institutional Abuse | abuse which takes place in a school or residential setting. |
Mandatory Reporting | where professionals are legally required to report their concerns relating to child abuse and neglect. |
Neglect | occurs when a child's essential needs are not met and this is likely to cause impairment to physical health and development. |
Non-organic Failure to Thrive | can be observed in children who significantly fail to reach normal growth and developmental milestones where physical and genetic reasons have been medically excluded. |
Organised Abuse | abuse where there was more than a single abuser and the adults concerned appear to have acted in concert to abuse children and/or where an adult has used an institutional framework or position of authority to recruit children for abuse. |
Parent Substitute | an adult either foster carer, relative, family friend or guardian who either formally or informally fulfils the role of a parent for a child. |
Peer Abuse | abuse of children and young people by other children or young people. |
Physical Abuse | actual or attempted physical injury to a child where there is definite knowledge or reasonable suspicion that the injury was inflicted or knowingly not prevented. |
Procurator Fiscal | public prosecutor who, following the reporting of a crime, decides whether or not to prosecute. |
Racial Abuse | where a person is subjected to racial attacks or harassment. |
Reporter | an independent person, employed by the Scottish Children's Reporters Administration who has statutory powers for the protection and wellbeing of all children, wide discretionary powers and a large measure of independence. When the Reporter receives information that a child may be in need of compulsory measures of supervision, he or she must make any further enquiries he or she considers necessary before deciding either to take no further action, to refer the child to the social work department for voluntary assistance or to refer to a children's Hearing. |
Risk Assessment | the process of assessing the risk caused or faced by an individual and how much harm is likely to result if the risks are realised. |
Schedule 1 Offenders | offenders convicted of offences against children. This includes sexual and violent offences. |
Self harming | behaviour by children or young people where they deliberately harm themselves, most commonly by inflicting cuts on their body, starving or overdosing with drink or drugs. |
Sexual Abuse | actual or threatened sexual assault or exploitation of a child or adult victim. |
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) | the sudden and unexpected death of a baby for no obvious reason, that remains unexplained after post-mortem examination. Also know as cot death. |
Supervision Requirement | places a child under the supervision of the local authority. |
System Abuse | where the operation of legislation, officially sanctioned procedures or operational policies within systems or institutions are avoidably damaging to children and their families. |
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child | an international human rights treaty which articulates the human rights for children and standards to which governments must aspire in realising these rights. |
Young Offender | legal classification of offender aged from 16 to 21. |