Safeguarding Briefing - 16th January 2023
FAO: All Schools & Academies - All Phases - Heads & DSLs
Dear Colleagues,
Announcing 'Listen Up, Speak Up'
To start the year the NSPCC has unveiled their new ‘Listen Up, Speak Up’ campaign, aimed at giving adults practical advice, about how to address concerns about a child. Although a core duty of safeguarding staff, the reporting of concerning signs among children in education is a key part of anyone charged with looking after children and young people. And the disheartening news is that at the moment the world of under-18s is in the midst of a spike in concern flagging. From April 2021 to March 2022 the NSPCC Helpline spoke 8,347 times with adults, compared to 7,338 in the same period for the previous year. Unavoidably when a child begins to show concerning signs indicative of abuse whilst on the school premises, a reoccurring question of ‘what do I do’ will spring to mind. You may know the child well, or know the family well and it will almost certainly put you in a difficult position. Even for safeguarding staff, it is not uncommon for these feelings to dominate, at least initially. The new NSPCC campaign, is designed for these situations, and I hope you’ll find it useful. If interested please follow the link below:
Worried Children - How Can We Help
Growing up is no easy task. We can all remember times when we were children, or maybe a little older when everything seemed too much. Whether it’s the demands of the curriculum provoking all too familiar thoughts of ‘I don’t get it’, oncoming exam stress and the accompanying ‘I might ruin my future’ or the unrelenting mounting responsibilities of growing up, children and young people live with lots on their minds. And these worries can impair their performance at school, their ability to socialize properly or their relationship with educational professionals. In these circumstances it is important to know how to help them out of their blue times, so that they can get the most out of education. Fortunately Save the Children published expert led guidance this week aimed at aiding educational professionals, in their endeavours to understand and uplift their pupils when they’re down. If you would like to find out more please follow the link below:
https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/blogs/2023/what-to-do-if-a-child-is-worried
Did Someone Forward this Safeguarding Briefing to You?
If you would like to receive your own copy of the Safeguarding Briefing, simply go to: https://www.safeguardinginschools.co.uk/safeguarding-briefing-joining-page
Free Supervision Skills Course from Supervision in Schools
The supervision consultancy firm – Supervision in School is offering access to a free 30-minute group training session for educational staff. The free session – ‘The Art and Skill of Asking Good Questions’, focuses on building the confidence of attendees, with a view to enabling them better engage professional group settings. Often, particularly when working in education, we may find ourselves in multi-delegate scenarios, with many voices competing for attention. A great many of us will enter these rooms with plenty to say but feel under immense pressure to not add to the clamour. Either through fear of looking bad in front of your peers, or through just not thinking your point is good enough to enter the discourse. This session is designed with these people in mind. Through a series of learning segments and activities, the attendee is coached into breaking down these participation barriers, boosting confidence and preventing dependency on others for suggestions and leadership. The course has been designed in conjunction with the company’s director – Julia Davey. Starting as a specialist advisor on Autism in 2005, Davey has held multiple high prestige positions in the education realm, becoming Strategic Lead for Birmingham City Council’s SEND division in 2018, before rising to Head of Service Education Safeguarding the following year. In October 2020, she founded Supervision in Schools and is currently leading the company with the same talent that propelled her to the top of her field in Birmingham. The opportunity presented is not to be missed, and you can participate by following the link below:
https://supervisioninschool.thinkific.com/courses/2023
Ask Sam - ChildLine Questions Archive
Children and Young People can often find it difficult to share issues with educational staff. Particularly if they think that those issues will get them into trouble, or if they happen to be of an embarrassing nature. In addition many pupils will find the promise of confidentiality received from staff, difficult to believe. This might be particularly true among children whose familial backgrounds are unstable, or who simply have not had the most positive experiences with trusting adults. For safeguarding and educational staff alike, the question arising from these situations is ‘well how can I help if I don’t know what’s wrong.’ ChildLine’s ‘Ask Sam’ service seeks to aid in these scenarios for both under-18’s and teachers. The page contains an archive of questions asked to ChildLine from children and young people on a range of issues. In this way it can help to outline the kind of issues that staff can expect their pupils to be struggling with. Whilst their ‘Sam’ responses contain expert replies to these issues, helpful for staff wrestling with what the best answer may be to a child’s concerns. ChildLine’s Ask Sam page can be found by following the link below:
https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/ask-sam/
Criminal Child Exploitation - Roundtable Report
The SPACE (Stop & Prevent Adolescent Criminal Exploitation) Organization was founded in January 2018, to address the rapidly rising phenomenon, now known as County Lines and its close relative Child Criminal Exploitation. Back in 2021, undertook a series of round table conferences on Child Criminal Exploitation. These conferences were aimed at attempting to answer the big issues in the field, and a report published by SPACE off the back of these consultations, makes for compelling reading. This thirty-two page document contains sections on schools, the role of the criminal justice system and of the police. If you’re member of your institution’s safeguarding team, the document is well worth a look. They also publish occasional articles over on their LinkedIn page. You can find a link to the previously mentioned summary document below:
The UK Safer Internet Centre - Resources Packs
Safer Internet Day is just around the corner. A time when people involved in safeguarding, or in education more generally can take the opportunity to educate children and young people, on how to use the internet in a safe and secure manner. To help you engage with your classes on this theme the campaign organizers, have published a series of resources packs aimed at pupils from 3 – 18. If you’re a head-teacher thinking of putting together an assembly centred on the matter, or just wanting to plan a lesson with internet safety as a theme, then these packs are perfect for you. If you’d like to explore the ideas contained within these packs then follow the link and download your free copies:
https://saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/safer-internet-day-2023/educational-resources
Allergy Training Opportunity - The Allergy Team
We don’t need to tell you that allergic reactions in school are neither trivial nor uncommon. With average secondary school sizes of just below 900 pupils, and an estimated 5% to 8% of children having a food allergy, the chances of a moderate to serious reaction occurring in your school are high. When Sarah Knight discovered that her two children fell into this category, she, like many mothers upon stumbling across this information began to worry. Finding herself overwhelmed by food labels, confusingly displayed nutritional information and conflicting advice, she set about to find out what’s what. Soon this attention to detail became second nature. Yet scrutinising specifications were not second nature to either the public at large or schools – busy institutions attempting to feed hundreds at a time. She decided to solve this problem and three years ago set up ‘The Allergy Team’ to spread awareness to institutions and educational establishments throughout the country. Like with many health risk incidents in schools, prevention is better than post-reaction treatment. With this in mind The Allergy Team is now offering CPD accredited online training in: Mental Health & Allergy, expert-led webinars on managing food allergies in pupils and free drop in sessions. All aimed at reducing the impact of food allergies on children and making schools safer for food vulnerable pupils attending them. The Allergy Team are also running a special offer just for Safeguarding Briefing subscribers, for your chance to claim 20% off on their courses, simply mention us when purchasing. To take up this excellent offer either email schools@theallergyteam.com or go to their site at: theallergyteam.com/schools.
Forthcoming Courses
Implementing the role of the Senior Mental Health Lead (DfE Course Code SMHL105)
This is our DfE Quality Assured course for Senior Mental Health Leads. The course offers self-paced learning using the resources in our SMHL.Pro Hub, which is available for 12 months. Each month there is a live online member check-in to catch up with your tutors and each other. The course cost £397+VAT, some schools are eligible for a grant to cover this cost.
For more details, go to: https://www.smhl.pro/course
Advanced Safeguarding for DSLs
This is a four-session course for DSLs over a full-day. The course is offered live and as a recorded replay. When the course is live, there are plenty of opportunities to contribute with observations, questions or answers. As a recording, the interactions from other people are included and feedback notes that this makes it feel like you are not on your own.
"I came to a session in Birmingham back in 2019 (the day after the GE I think) and it was superb. Today [online] was just as good, if not better. The use of video mixed with live speaking was excellent and goes way beyond what other safeguarding courses provide. You've been there and done it, and your openness with your own story is inspirational."
LIVE ONLINE Tuesday 21st February 2023 BOOK NOW
...and available online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for your convenience BOOK NOW
LIVE ON LOCATION remember that you can book Andrew to visit your school, cluster or MAT to share his DSL course. Please contact us for details and bookings.
Whole School Safeguarding CPD Online Session for 2022/2023
In this two and half hour online presentation aimed at staff in all roles, specialist safeguarding consultant, Andrew Hall, explores important aspects of safeguarding in schools including child protection, learning from case studies and the latest version of Keeping Children Safe in Education.
"In my excitement, I forgot to add our star rating to the Safeguarding training we have just watched. If we could, we would give it 10 stars! That was the best Safeguarding training we have ever had, thank you so much. Feedback from staff has, so far, been overwhelmingly positive…I can't thank you enough."
"I would like to extend my thanks to Andrew for his fantastic online training. It was filmed so well - almost as if he were here with us! We were kept engaged throughout and felt so well informed - a huge thank you. It was a real success, and we look forward to booking you again in the future - with the staff team saying it was the best safeguarding training they have ever had. We really appreciated Andrew's real-life storytelling and the way such sensitive information was shared - it was excellent training."
You book your online session here: www.safeguardinginschools.co.uk/availablecourses
Until next time, keep safe and thank you for all the work you're doing,
Andrew Hall
Specialist Safeguarding Consultant,
Success In Schools Ltd.
