Ten years ago, our editorial (Appleton and Stanley, 2008) reinforced the message that safeguarding children and young people is the responsibility of everyone. This issue is as pertinent today as it was then, and all professionals working with children and young people must receive training and know how to recognise, assess and respond to the signs of child abuse and neglect (HM Government, 2018; NICE, 2017). An important part of working with children and families is not only being clear about our own role, but also having a good understanding of the role and expertise of other professionals; this is crucially important to ensure a shared responsibility and effective joint working between organisations, agencies and practitioners (HM Government, 2018). This also involves being clear about and complying with both statutory and local safeguarding children policies, procedures and arrangements (HM Government, 2018). Working together extends also to education and knowledge sharing. BASPCAN is a registered charity and a membership association for all child protection professional groups across the UK providing education for those working to safeguard children and young people and professional development opportunities, while also seeking to educate and inform the general public. ‘An important part of working with children and families is… having a good understanding of the role and expertise of other professionals’ This issue opens with a report by Joanna Garstang and Frances Griffiths (2018) examining how police, health and social care professionals now work together using the joint agency approach, which was introduced in England in 2008, to investigate sudden unexpected child deaths. This paper is part of a wider mixed-methods study evaluating the new joint agency approach to sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI). In this research, police officers (11), paediatricians (10), specialist nurses (3) and social workers (2) were interviewed, all of whom had a range of experience of SUDI cases. The key theme emerging from this research was that while joint agency working enabled a thorough investigation by professionals of the circumstances of the child's death, it could be challenging to remain sensitive to the needs of bereaved families. However, the majority of respondents were positive about the new joint agency approach, in particular joint home visits and interviews conducted by police and paediatricians, where their roles were perceived as complementing each other; giving inquiries a medical rather than a police focus. Yet the study also highlighted some of the difficulties of joint agency working and included in some cases poor liaison with coroners and difficulties in engaging social care, for example, in only nine of 23 cases was there any representation from social care in both the initial information-sharing meeting and the final case discussion. The authors conclude that while the national joint agency approach appears to be a thorough process for investigating SUDI, it ‘could be improved by closer joint agency working and information sharing, and more support and training for professionals’ (p. 429). ‘Examing how police, health and social care professionals now work together… to investigate sudden unexpected child deaths’ The second paper in this issue by Kevin Borg and Jane Barlow (2018) reports on a study from Malta which explored the experiences, perceptions and attitudes of paediatricians about child protection work. This paper reinforces the important role that paediatricians have in the multiagency team response to an allegation or concern about child maltreatment. Borg and Barlow (2018) conducted a mixed-methods study, using an explanatory sequential design. An initial cross-sectional survey was distributed to all paediatricians and paediatric trainees (56) employed in the Maltese NHS, which achieved an excellent response rate of 95 per cent (n = 53). This was then followed up by qualitative interviews with five paediatricians to gain more in-depth data. Respondents highlighted child protection work as complex, stressful and emotive, and concerns were raised about the negative consequences of getting things wrong in this type of work. Respondents reported an absence of formal training, with 77 per cent reporting that they had never received training in child protection. These findings are similar to those reported by Jedwab and Benbenishty (2017) and Candler et al. (2016) in their respective studies of Israeli and Kenyan paediatricians. While the majority reported having assessed a child maltreatment case, 29 per cent had never assessed a case of sexual abuse and 33 per cent had never assessed a case of emotional abuse. Unsurprisingly, many participants were under-confident in taking a history and examining a child in these cases when compared with physical abuse and neglect. The majority of participants reported that local reporting procedures and response/care pathways were unclear, and that they were often not involved in tasks relating to child protection beyond the initial identification stage, as the designated consultant took on this role; so the learning opportunities were less than ideal. Indeed, 72 per cent reported never having participated in interagency activities such as child protection conference meetings. While respondents appeared to be reassured by having a designated consultant to refer cases to, Borg and Barlow (2018) suggest that this may result in paediatricians ‘using this role to offload responsibility’ (p. 462). Borg and Barlow (2018) highlight the absence of mandatory and statutory guidelines within Malta, resulting in ‘suboptimal practice with regard to child protection’ (p. 464). The study findings reinforce the need in Malta for ‘a robust structure that ensures that child protection is everybody's responsibility’ (Borg and Barlow, 2018, p. 462) and the establishment of safeguarding teams of different professionals to work together in cases of child maltreatment. ‘Reinforces the important role that paediatricians have in the multiagency team response to an allegation or concern about child maltreatment’ The short report in this issue by Jeremy Gibson and colleagues (2018) from the Southern Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Derby City Council in England returns to a problem frequently highlighted in the literature, that of involving general practitioners (GPs: a group of doctors who work in practices in the community) in child protection conferences and increasing their attendance and contribution at these important meetings. To improve joint working between children's social care and local GPs, a local evaluation was undertaken to formally review GP child protection conference reports and their level of attendance at child protection conferences. This small evaluation gathered data from GP safeguarding leads from 11 separate GP practices, referring to initial child protection conference (ICPC) minutes and reporting on GP involvement in 52 ICPCs. Additionally, the local authority was requested to analyse ICPC data retrospectively over two separate periods in 2016 and 2017. This evaluation highlighted three key local problems: GPs not receiving invitations to attend ICPCs; GPs not receiving requests for reports for ICPCs; and difficulties for children's social care in identifying which GP practice a child was registered with ahead of an ICPC. Despite children's social care having emailed Primary Care Support England on a generic email address to determine which GP practice the child was registered with, none of these emails received a response. So, often children's social care did not know which GP practice a child was registered with before a child protection conference. Unsurprisingly, Gibson et al. (2018) found that GPs attended less than four per cent of the ICPCs studied. ‘Often children's social care did not know which GP practice a child was registered with before a child protection conference’ While small in scale, what is useful about this short report is that it details some practical initiatives implemented in response to these findings ‘in an attempt to improve information sharing between local GPs and children's social care, and to increase GP involvement in ICPCs’ (Gibson et al., 2018, p. 472). These included initially working with one general practice to develop an electronic self-populating ICPC report embedded in the electronic health record SystmOne and a safeguarding template for SystmOne, which is an area in the patient's records where all relevant safeguarding information for a child is held. Other initiatives include: introducing the option of GPs joining in meetings by teleconference; and children's social care now inviting GPs to attend ICPCs by emailing a generic practice email address which each practice checks daily during working days. This list is maintained by the CCG and shared with children's social care. The fourth paper in this issue by Carolyne Ajema and colleagues (2018) from Nairobi, Kenya, also draws on retrospective data from a review of the records of 164 child survivors of sexual abuse as part of an exploratory study assessing the range and quality of health services provided to these children. The study was undertaken in one rural and one urban public health facility in two counties in Kenya. Additional data collection methods included interviews with 31 healthcare providers who attend to cases of sexual abuse, including nurses, physicians, social workers, pharmacists, counsellors, laboratory technologists and administrators, a health facility staff inventory, and 19 exit interviews with 14 child survivors and their caregivers. In a similar vein to the study by Borg and Barlow (2018), few providers (only 2 out of 581) had undertaken training specifically in the management of child survivors of sexual abuse, and only nine per cent had attended a three-day training programme on the management of gender-based violence using national guidance, thus lacking the knowledge of how to respond to the needs of child survivors of sexual abuse. While national guidance and protocols exist on the management of survivors of sexual violence, all the healthcare providers stated that these protocols were not child-specific. This study highlights one of the problems of relying on data from a retrospective review of medical records as data were missing from the records of child survivors of sexual abuse, yet it was not possible to determine whether missing data for prophylactic treatment related ‘to the lack of documentation despite services having been provided’ (Ajema et al., 2018, p. 483) or that the children had never actually received the services. Indeed, none of the child survivors who participated in the exit interviews had received the minimum package of care which should be available, including: injury management; prophylactic treatment (emergency contraceptives, HIV, PEP, STI drugs); counselling; evidence collection and analysis; documentation on the medico-legal form; and referral to other non-health-related services. Furthermore, survivor and caregiver satisfaction were closely related to waiting times at the two hospitals. Ajema et al.'s (2018) research also reported a lack of facilities available for examinations with no private rooms in one of the hospitals, and difficulties in collecting forensic evidence because of the lack of essential equipment and basic lockable storage cupboards. The research highlights health system and service delivery gaps in the management of cases where children have been sexually abused. These authors conclude their study by arguing that ‘there is a need for health facilities to enhance their human resource and infrastructural capacity to facilitate the delivery of comprehensive care to child survivors’ (p. 475) of sexual abuse. ‘Highlights health system and service delivery gaps in the management of cases where children have been sexually abused’ ‘processes where children, communities and other stakeholders can contribute to both defining protection concerns and creating response mechanisms that are realistic, culturally appropriate and draw on the strengths and capacities which already exist within communities.’ ( Walker-Simpson, 2017, p. 260) ‘would demonstrate an absence of ambivalence by assigning almost exclusively positive messages to their preferred parent and overwhelmingly negative messages to their target parent, supporting the notion that parental alienation leads to splitting’ ( Blagg and Godfrey, 2018, p. 489). The study findings supported these hypotheses, although the neglected/emotionally abused children showed a propensity to idealise their parents despite the abuse that they had suffered. Blagg and Godfrey (2018) note that children and young people's expressed views about their parents in the family courts are often cited as a reason to promote or resist contact with a parent. They conclude by arguing that their findings show that there is a ‘need for in-depth multimodal psychological assessments’ (Blagg and Godfrey, 2018, p. 486) to determine children's ascertainable wishes. ‘Neglected/emotionally abused children showed a propensity to idealise their parents despite the abuse that they had suffered’ This issue includes two training updates. Ro Gordon (2018) reviews the first update Understanding Animal Welfare in Violent Homes which is on a freely available e-learning module by the Links Group and Virtual College. Gordon's (2018) review is mixed in its appraisal and indicates that whilst the module is interesting, the information included about the abuse of children or vulnerable adults is inadequate to provide those people with a background in animal welfare ‘with a really solid safeguarding base’ (p. 498). The second training update Self-Harm and Suicidal Thoughts in Children and Young People, also developed by the Virtual College, is reviewed by Alison Cocks (2018). This e-learning programme is described as particularly suitable for workers who are new to work with children and young people and who need an introduction to issues of self-harm and suicidal ideation. Cocks (2018) suggests that the module's strengths relate to the presentation of warning signs to look out for and risk factors that might be present. E-learning training resources that include guidance on child abuse and neglect reporting can help practitioners to be better equipped to communicate with other professionals and agencies on child safeguarding matters.