Youth workers uneducated on child protection

THE next generation of teachers and social workers have little understanding of child protection procedures, alarming research has found.

The study was carried out among more than 40 postgraduate students of nursing (most of whom already work in the profession), teaching and social work at National University of Ireland, Galway.

It found that while there is training on child protection, there is little consistency between programmes and many students are unclear even who the first person to contact should be in the case of suspected abuse.