Harm
The Children Act 1989 defines harm as the ‘ill-treatment’ of a child or the ‘impairment’ of the child’s health or development. This includes harm caused by seeing or hearing someone else being ill-treated (e.g. a child witnessing domestic abuse).
Development means a child’s ‘physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development’. And ‘health’ means a child’s ‘physical or mental health’.
Harm can be caused by:
- A parent or carer’s actions
- A parent or carer’s failure to prevent harm.
The definition of harm is set out in Section 31(9) of the Children Act 1989.
For more information see:
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