The grounds for referral:

Thinking about acceptable and unacceptable standards of behaviour.

There are other types of behaviour are considered to be harmful and potentially harmful to a child.

It is not possible to give a definitive list of the types of behaviour that are considered to be harmful and/or potentially harmful to a child or young person.

A child can be harmed (for example) because of emotional, sexual and/or physical abuse, neglect, intentional/inappropriate restraint, on-going harassment and bullying and/or a failure to attend to essential Health & Safety requirements.

When thinking about the type of behaviour which may justify the referral of an individual to the List, organisations may find it helpful to think about:

1: Behaviour that is considered to be good practice.

This should include (for example) behaviour on the part of workers which shows an understanding of the need to:

treat all children and young people with respect and dignity irrespective of their age, ‘race’, religious belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability and socio-economic group;

attend to the social, emotional, physical and spiritual development of children and young people;

encourage full participation in activities whilst at the same time acknowledging the limitations that may prevent this because of a child/young person’s ‘special needs’.

The above good practice is based on a number of Articles from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 1989

2: Behaviour that should be avoided.

This type of behaviour may include actions which if left unchecked could lead to serious allegations of harm by a worker to a child or young person. Examples include:

being alone with a child or young person for long periods of time;
failing to respect their physical space;
using inappropriate language in front of children, young people or workers.

3: Behaviour that will never be sanctioned.

This type of behaviour should cover serious misconduct such as:

sexual abuse of a child;
wilful physical assault;
supplying illicit substances;
extortion and on-going bullying, harassment and intimidation (e.g. racial and sexual bullying and harassment).

Acceptable and unacceptable standards of behaviour, together with the actions that will be taken if these are not met, should be summarised in a written Code of Conduct.

The Code should be given to all workers and made available to children, young people and their parents/carers.

Further information on the development of a Code of Conduct is given in Creating Safe Places.

A further example of good practice can be found in the publication:

“Child and Adult Protection: Model Policy and Procedures for Governing Bodies of Sport in Scotland” (Sportscotland)

The publication contains a Code of Conduct which identifies practices which have been categorised into:

Good practice;
Practice to be avoided;
Practice never to be sanctioned

Copies of this publication are available from Sports Scotland, Caledonia House, South Gyle, Edinburgh, EH12 9DQ. Tel. 0131 317 7200