An Authentic Human Truth Insight Series
An authentic human truth reflecting why a child is never required to demonstrate that they can protect themselves to deserve protection.
What carries a child’s protection when they cannot recognise, explain or communicate the risk or harm?
Jasmine Luke | Human Edge Consulting
There is a sentence I keep returning to when I think about safeguarding.
A child cannot self-protect.
It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Perhaps so obvious that we move past it without spending much time with what it asks of us.
We talk about children’s voices, protective behaviours, participation and agency. We want children to recognise boundaries, know who they can speak with and feel safe to tell someone when something is wrong.
Of course we do, those things matter deeply.
But I find myself sitting with another question.
What happens when a child cannot do those things?
When they don’t have the words yet.
When they don’t recognise what is happening.
When the person they would usually turn to is the person causing concern.
Or when they have spoken — in whatever way they can — the adults around them haven’t understood.
What carries their protection then?
Throughout my policing career, understanding a child’s vulnerability meant considering much more than what had happened.
Their age and development mattered. So did the nature of the risk, the people around them, and whether a caregiver was both willing and able to act protectively.
Willingness and ability were separate considerations.
A person could care deeply and still need help or interventions to protect a child.
For some children, particularly infants and those in their earliest years, there are no words to find. They are entirely dependent on the adults around them to recognise their needs, notice when something is wrong and keep them safe.
As children grow, their capacity to recognise risk, communicate and seek help may develop. Their entitlement to protection, and the responsibility adults carry for it, does not diminish.
That distinction has stayed with me.
So has the understanding that a child’s protection cannot depend on their ability to explain why they need it.
A child should never have to recognise that an adult’s behaviour is inappropriate.
They should never have to understand grooming, power, boundaries or organisational responsibilities before someone takes notice.
They should not have to decide whether something is serious enough to tell somebody.
And they certainly should not have to become sufficiently articulate, confident or brave before the adults around them act protectively.
When I say a child cannot self-protect, I am speaking about where responsibility belongs.
I am not saying children have no agency. Quite the opposite actually.
Children have insight, preferences and knowledge of their own experiences.
We most certainly need to hear them and involve them in decisions affecting their lives.
But giving a child a voice must never become a quiet transfer of safeguarding responsibility from adults to children.
I have spent almost twenty years listening to people after something had happened.
Sometimes a child could describe their experience.
Sometimes they could not.
Sometimes what mattered first was a change in behaviour, a relationship, a moment somebody noticed but couldn’t quite explain yet.
Not every observation indicates harm, and that matters too.
We owe people fairness, not assumptions.
But we also owe children adults who remain curious when the answer isn’t obvious.
Children communicate differently.
Age, development, communication needs, relationships and experiences influence what they can share, and how. A child may have a great deal to say.
Another may need time, support or a different way to communicate. Some are too young to describe an experience at all.
Their care should not depend on how much information they can give us.
I think about the adults around them. The educator who notices something different. The parent who senses a change. The volunteer who feels uncertain about an interaction. The leader who hears a concern that has not yet arrived with a clear explanation.
What happens next matters.
Do we make room for what they have noticed? Do we help them understand where to take it? Do we respond with care without rushing to either accusation or reassurance?
And if a child cannot tell us clearly that something is wrong, what else are we prepared to notice?
These questions do not lessen the importance of children’s participation. They ask us to support it with something children should always be able to rely on: capable, attentive adults willing and able to act protectively.
Leaving policing changed where I could contribute.
Much of my work had begun when a child or family was already living with consequences that could not simply be undone. Creating Human Edge gave me a way to bring what I learned into earlier conversations, earlier interventions and earlier action.
Not because I have every answer. I don’t.
But I have spent enough time listening to children, and to the adults trying to protect them, to know that responsibility cannot only begin when a child finds the right words.
A child’s voice matters. Their choices, participation and agency matter.
And when they cannot recognise the risk, cannot find the words or cannot represent themselves to be understood, their need for protection remains.
That responsibility belongs with us.
An Invitation to Connection Through My Writings.
My experiences matter. So does what others taught me through theirs.
I share these Insights through the experiences, conversations and people who have shaped my understanding along the way. Not because I hold every answer, or because my perspective needs to become yours. But because something I've written here may connect with something you've experienced, noticed, questioned or come to understand differently.
Whatever you take from these words belongs to you.
