State the Possible Types, Signs and Symptoms of Child Abuse and Why It Is Important to Follow the Policies and Procedures of the Work Place

Evidence of signs and symptoms, does not actually mean that a child is being abused; but they can help someone recognise that something may be wrong. If a child shows a number of these signs and symptoms; and they seem serious, the possibility of abuse should be investigated. It is important for people to realise that a child can be a victim of different sorts of abuse, such as a child being neglected; the child will not be clothed and fed properly, they will not feel loved and protected, and the child may be suffering from emotional abuse. The child may not have any outward marks of abuse, and they may try and hide what is happening from everyone.

I am now going to write about each of the following types of abuse –

 Physical abuse
 Emotional abuse
 Bullying and harassment
 Sexual abuse
 Neglect

Physical abuse -
This is when a child is physically injured, and often there are usually visual signs on their body, such as bruises, burns, scalds, head injuries, and fractures. The possible indicators of bruises are, visual bruises on the soft areas of the body (arms, thighs, buttocks), bald patches due to hair being ripped out, unexplained injuries (bruises, burns and fractures), bite marks (a dog bite will look different from a human’s bite, and adult’s bite is larger than a child’s). There is also finger-tip bruising on the face (this could be caused by forced bottle feeding, or a hard slap), unusually shaped bruises (non-accidental bruising done by an object such as a stick or a shoe) bruising on the torso (child may have been shaken and held forcefully), scald and burn marks (a child may pull a kettle over themselves by accident, or someone has purposefully thrown the boiling water over them, or tried to burn their child with cigarettes, or other fire substances which will lead to burn marks), repeated black eyes or injuries, which should raise some alarm bells for other