From survival to safeguarding: A history of child protection

Abstract

250 British Journal of School Nursing June 2012 Vol 7 No 5 There are good reasons to suggest that protecting children is a public health issue. If public health is defined as the protection and promotion of the health of individuals and populations to ensure the continuation of our species, then the care and protection of our young is fundamental to this philosophy: they are the next generation. As a society, one could argue that this is a collective social responsibility but historically children have not always been the focus of attention or even viewed as vulnerable. Indeed, across the world in modern society, children are not always protected from harm, they are sent to work at a young age, sold by their parents or abused by adults.