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Category: Project

Description: To improve educational outcomes for maltreated children, there is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of the education workforce to respond appropriately to their needs. Efforts to build teachers capacity for child protection and safeguarding must ensure that teachers receive adequate and effective training before they enter the workforce, that is, in initial teacher education. We conducted a systematic scoping review to synthesize current evidence about child protection and safeguarding in initial (pre-registration) teacher education with the aim to develop a knowledge base, and to understand what we — as researchers, teacher educators, and professional accreditation bodies — can and should be doing better. Thirty-one studies (reported in 38 papers) met the inclusion criteria. Studies clustered into three themes: (i) studies investigating preparedness to deal with child protection and safeguarding (n=15); (ii) studies investigating preparation for child protection and safeguarding (n=14); and (iii) studies investigating preferences for future training (n=2). We identified key contents or topics covered, teaching methods and delivery modes, time allocations, and personnel involved in course delivery. Findings suggest that if we are to adequately prepare educators for their child protection and safeguarding roles, greater consultation with student teachers and teacher educators is needed alongside efforts to leverage off existing well-designed, rigorously evaluated programs, which have been found to be feasibly delivered and acceptable to future professionals.