1. Department for Education July 2015
Keeping children safe in education: statutory guidance for schools and colleges
Department for Education
July 2015
Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. School and college staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early and provide help for children, to prevent concerns from escalating. Schools and colleges and their staff form part of the wider safeguarding system for children. This system is described in statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children Schools and colleges should work with social care, the police, health services and other services to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm

2. What is your role?
a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which young people can learn
a responsibility to identify young people who may be in need of extra help or who are suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm
responsibility to take appropriate action, working with other services as needed.
working with the designated safeguarding lead, you may be asked to support social workers to take decisions about individuals.
How do you provide a safe environment?
Who are your designated safeguarding leads?

3. What you should already know ...
systems within HOE which support safeguarding including:
Child protection policy
Staff behaviour policy or code of conduct
Who are the designated safeguarding leads
You should have
updated training every
year.
Remind people of paperwork including pink cause for concern forms. Show them the file we keep at leadership and how we record a chronology of events.
Reminder of maintaining an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. When concerned about a child’s welfare, we should always act in the interests of the child

4. Anyone can refer!
If, at any point, there is a risk of immediate serious harm to a child a referral should be made to children’s social care (MASH) immediately. Anybody can make a referral. If the child’s situation does not appear to be improving the staff member with concerns should press for re-consideration. Concerns should always lead to help for the child at some point.
Children need to receive the right help at the right time to address risks and prevent issues escalating. Poor practice highlighted from serious case reviews include: failing to act on and refer early signs of abuse and neglect, poor record keeping, failing to listen to views of the child, failing to reassess concerns when the situation does not improve, sharing information too slowly and lack of challenge to those who appear not to be taking action.
WHISTLEBLOWING

5. What you should look out for
Knowing what to look for is vital to the early identification of abuse and neglect
the signs of abuse and neglect so we are able to identify cases of children who may be in need of help or protection.
maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. When concerned about the welfare of a child, staff members should always act in the interests of the child.
child going missing from an education setting is a potential indicator of abuse or neglect, particularly on repeat occasions and is a risk
indicator for child sexual exploitation

6. Types of abuse & neglect
Physical
Emotional
Sexual
neglect

7. Physical A form of abuse which may involve:
Hitting
Shaking
Throwing
Poisoning
Burning
Scalding
Drowning
suffocating
otherwise causing physical harm to a child
May also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child.
Usually quite obvious. Unexplained marks or explanations.
Watch out for domestic violence signs, and violence in relationships between adolescents – seeing it in films & videos and they then think it is acceptable

8. Emotional
the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve:
conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person.
Not giving the child opportunities to express their views
deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate.
age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed. These may include interactions that are beyond a child’s developmental capability as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration and learning
preventing the child participating in normal social interaction.
seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another.
serious bullying (including cyber bullying)
causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger
exploitation or corruption of children.
Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, although it may occur alone.

9. Sexual
forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening.
activities may involve physical contact, including assault by penetration (for example rape or oral sex) or non-penetrative acts such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside of clothing.
may also include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, or grooming a child in preparation for abuse (including via the internet).
Sexual abuse is not solely perpetrated by adult males. Women can also commit acts of sexual abuse, as can other children.

10. Neglect
The persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.
Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse.
Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:
provide adequate food, clothing and shelter (including exclusion from home or abandonment);
protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger;
ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate care-givers);
or ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment. It may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs.

11. Children missing from Education
Potential indicator of abuse or neglect
Absence reporting mechanisms
Look out for individual triggers to be aware of e.g. Travelling to conflict zones, and forced marriage
All schools must inform the LA of any pupil who fails to attend school regularly or who has been absent without the school’s permission for a continuous period of 10 days or more, at such intervals that are agreed between the school and the LA
Particularly important if it is on repeat occasions – will indicate any risks
New area in KCSIE in updated version (see separate sheet)

12. Child sexual exploitation
Exploitative situation, contexts and relationships where young people receive something in exchange as a result of engaging in sexual activity
Always an imbalance of power in the relationship
Involves coercion, intimidation or enticement.
Look out for the signs – tiredness, suddenly having a lot of money, new possessions, secretive, change in physical appearance, increased health problems, being abusive
May not exhibit external signs of abuse
Bluetoothing – offenders using it to target young people by scanning who has the btooth on and the name comes up, they then send a message and arrange a face to face as ‘remember me’
Shopping centres, ice skating rinks etc – where young people are not supervised
BME & LGBGT groups hard to engage and difficult to talk to so don’t get a true picture of their involvement
Be aware of exploitation of boys also – lyrics to Maggie May by Rod Stewart – his own exploitation by an older man in 1975
For children who regularly go missing, have ‘safe and well’ meetings when they return – make sure same people do them to build up rapport and safe repeated questions
20 – 25% of sexually exploited children are LAC – but what comes first? The exploitation then care or vice versa? What about risk assessment? Also risks to other in a care home who may also be already sexually exploited
Trafficking – children from the UK may also be moved around are also defined as trafficked. Is not defined by distances moved. May be moved to hide sexual exploitation

13. Female Genital Mutilation
All procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to female genital organs
Illegal in UK
School aged girls from certain ethnic groups including Somali, Sudanese, Ethiopian and Gambian girls more at risk
Mandatory reporting from October 2015 – teacher, social workers and healthcare professionals will have to report incidents to police
Currently practised in about 28 African countries, part of Asia and Latin America and across the developed world where immigration from practising communities have taken place
Section 75 of serious crime act gives government powers to issue stat guidance – will start in Oct 15. if find out that FGM has been carried out on girl under 18, then stat duty upon that individual to report it to the police – need to dfiscuss with DSL first in line with procedures

14. Preventing radicalisation
Process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism
Part of our wider safeguarding duties
No single identifying factor
Be alert to changes in behaviour
Prevent duty (from July 1st 2015) – 4 themes – risk assessment, working in partnership, staff training and IT policies
Channel programme
Radicalisation can happen in different ways, contexts and settings. Specific background factors may contribute to vulnerability which are often combined with specific influences such as family, friends or online, with specific needs for which an extremist or terrorist group may appear to provide an answer. Internet and use of social media in particular has become a major factor in radicalisation.
Prevent duty – have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. Stat guidance is in place. 4 main themes (see above)
risk assessment – of children being drawn into terrorism and supporting extremist ideas that are part of terrorist ideology. Need to understand how to identify individual children and how to support them. Clear procedures for protecting children as part of safeguarding policy.
Have to have a policy on hw we will implement the prevent duty
builds on local partnerships e.g. With LSCBs
awareness training v important so staff know how to identify children at risk and how to challenge extremist ideas
suitable filtering is in place in any school based IT. Teaching about online safety v important
Need to understand when it is appropriate to make a referral to the Channel programme – focuses on providing support at an early stage to people who have been identified as being vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. There shoul be a channel panel in Northamptonshire

15. What do you do if you have a concern about a young person?
What do you say to them if they tell you something which places them at risk of harm?
Who do you share the information with?
What does that person then do?
How does the young person’s home school find out?
Where do you store your records?

16. Dealing with a disclosureDO
Listen carefully
Make accurate notes using the young person’s words
Inform the designated person safeguarding lead
Tell the young person that they have done the right thing by telling you
DON’T
Ask leading questions
Use your own words to describe events
Investigate
Promise confidentiality
True or false exercise or case studies

17. Respectful uncertainty
Scenarios can always be explained away – we always have to have a respectful uncertainty – abuse cuts across social class, ethnic groups etc – there are no hard and fast rules