- Home
- / Procedures
- / Managing individual cases
- / Worried about a child?
- / Advice if you are unsure
- / Neglect
Neglect
This occurs when a child's essential needs are not met and this is likely to cause impairment to physical health and development. Such needs include food, clothing, cleanliness, shelter and warmth. A lack of appropriate care results in persistent or severe exposure, through negligence, to circumstances which endanger the child. Physical neglect may also include a failure to secure appropriate medical treatment for the child, or when an adult carer persistently pursues or allows the child to follow a lifestyle inappropriate to the child's developmental needs or which jeopardises the child's health.
Scottish Government 1998
Indicators of physical neglect
The following indicators, singly or in combination, should alert workers to the possibility that the child may have been abused:
- lack of appropriate food;
- inappropriate or erratic feeding;
- hair loss;
- lack of adequate clothing;
- circulation disorders;
- unhygienic home conditions;
- a delay or failure in accessing medical care or administration of treatment which is obviously needed;
- general failure to achieve developmental milestones
- it may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child's basic emotional needs.
| This page was added to the website on 2 July 2015 |