Online child protection facility announced

A new online protection facility for child care professionals working across the Island of Ireland has gone live today.

The North South Child Protection Hub is available for use by policy makers, practitioners, researchers and educators in both the North and South.

Announcing the initiative in Newry this morning, Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews said the North South Child Protection Hub was a resource which would "support evidence informed child protection policy and practice in both jurisdictions."

The website brings together research, policy and practice guidance, inspection reports, serious case reviews, court judgements, news articles and other material relevant to child protection.

Also at the announcement of the new resource today was the Northern Ireland social services minister Michael McGimpsey, who described the website as an exciting new development which would "ensure that child-protection staff working on both sides of the border has immediate access to the most up to date information and research about child protection."

“We all have a responsibility to make sure our children are protected. I believe that better informed practitioners lead to better protection of children and the Hub will certainly help towards achieving this,” he said.