stomach pains fear of being left with a specific person discomfort when walking or sitting down or group of people pregnancy having nightmares running away from home sexual knowledge which is beyond their age, or developmental level sexual drawings or language bedwetting eating problems such as overeating or anorexia self-harm or mutilation, sometimes leading to suicide attempts saying they have secrets they cannot tell anyone about substance or drug abuse suddenly having unexplained sources of not allowed to have friends (particularly in adolescence) acting in a sexually explicit way towards adults Neglect constant hunger, sometimes stealing complaining of being tired all the time food from other children not requesting medical assistance and/or constantly dirty or failing to attend appointments ‘smelly’ loss of weight, or being constantly having few friends underweight mentioning being left alone or inappropriate clothing for the conditions unsupervised Appendix 4: Do’s and Don’ts of Managing a Disclosure Do’s and Don’ts of Managing a Disclosure Do’s Don’ts Stay calm and control expressions of Avoid using leading questions panic and shock Do not pressure the child/young person State clearly that the abuse was not the into telling you more than they want to. child/young person’s no matter what Avoid going over the information time – the circumstances and time again; you are only gathering information
stomach pains discomfort when walking or sitting down pregnancy fear of being left with a specific person or group of people having nightmares running away from home sexual knowledge which is beyond their age, or developmental level sexual drawings or language bedwetting eating problems such as overeating or anorexia self-harm or mutilation, sometimes leading to suicide attempts saying they have secrets they cannot tell anyone about substance or drug abuse suddenly having unexplained sources of not allowed to have friends (particularly in adolescence) acting in a sexually explicit way towards adults Neglect constant hunger, sometimes stealing food from other children constantly dirty or ‘smelly’ loss of weight, or being constantly underweight inappropriate clothing for the conditions complaining of being tired all the time not requesting medical assistance and/or failing to attend appointments having few friends mentioning being left alone or unsupervised Appendix 4: Do’s and Don’ts of Managing a Disclosure Do’s and Don’ts of Managing a Disclosure Do’s Don’ts Stay calm and control expressions of panic and shock State clearly that the abuse was not the child/young person’s – no matter what the circumstances Avoid using leading questions Do not pressure the child/young person into telling you more than they want to. Avoid going over the information time and time again; you are only gathering information
Safeguarding-Policy-Master-Sept-2017-V2-2.docx