Checking Adults Who Work With Children – What People Can Get Wrong

Checking adults who work with children – what people can get wrong In recent weeks my inbox had been full of enquiries concerning matters to do with safer recruitment, the single central record and all things to do with disclosure and barring checks. These matters are one area of safeguarding where I consistently encounter a …

Domestic violence and abuse – 6 things that everyone should know right now!

6 things that everyone should know right now.’ I have delivered training in Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) for many years now and I consider it an absolutely critical aspect of safeguarding knowledge that every member of the children’s workforce should have. Here is some important and up to date information about DVA that I …

Covid-19 and Mental Health

‘Self-isolating and social distancing was a bad habit I worked really hard to get out of. Now I’m being made to do it and being told it’s the right thing to do. It’s very confusing and I’m scared of falling back in to that cycle.’Survey Respondent, Coronavirus: Impact on Young People with Mental Health Needs, …

Are you safeguarding for LGBTQ+?

‘I felt like whatever I was doing was worthless. Even if I did well in school, it wouldn’t matter to people because all they would care about is me being gay.’ ZOE, 12, SECONDARY SCHOOL PUPIL, ENGLAND* It’s February, LGBTQ+ history month, and a good time to think about the safeguarding of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender …

Are you safeguarding for LGBTQ+?

Online safety – what is a whole school approach?

‘I don’t think my dad realises how many messages from random boys I get or how many dick pics I get. And I have to deal with it every day… it’s kind of like a normal thing for girls now’ – female pupil, 14 – from ‘Learning about online sexual harm’ Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual …

Online safety – what is a whole school approach?

Online peer abuse: are you educating children to keep safe online?

“I recently dealt with a case of a child who was of p6 [Scottish Year 5] age who sent an indecent image to another pupil who subsequently distributed this to the rest of the school. This was only discovered by myself when I overheard other pupils discussing this. We were faced with a difficult choice …

Online peer abuse: are you educating children to keep safe online?

What the Sad Death of Baby Aya Can Tell Us About Working with Fathers

My Safeguarding: Basic Awareness training courses now all set out a list of interesting and important Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) that I advise participants to read and to which I make copious reference to during the training. All SCRs can teach us a tremendous amount about good and poor practice. Ultimately a SCR can teach …

What the Sad Death of Baby Aya Can Tell Us About Working with Fathers

Why Do We Need to Learn About Disguised Compliance?

This week I was lucky enough to attend the Bristol Safeguarding Children Board Annual Conference. One of the guest speakers was Joanna Nicolas, a Child Protection Consultant & Trainer, who spoke about ‘Disguised Compliance’ and why it is an important concept for everyone who works with children to understand. Disguised Compliance is defined by the …

Why Do We Need to Learn About Disguised Compliance?