You may have missed it, but recently amongst all the political mayhem, and ahead of what seems like an imminent General Election, the Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield launched her ‘Children’s Manifesto’, setting out what young people want. What is the role of the Children’s Commissioner? The role of Children’s Commissioner is to promote and protect …
This time of year is the start of work for many new members of staff across the children’s workforce. Along with entrance codes, photocopying keys and how the tea and coffee supplies are organised, there is also the need to ensure that every induction should include training on safeguarding for each new staff member. Induction …
What is Pupil Premium Plus (PPP) funding and why is it in place? Children who’ve experienced trauma and loss in their early lives view the world through a different lens and need particular support to give them a chance to access (and hopefully thrive in) our current education system – see our earlier blog about …
Today I saw on BBC news the smiling photo of a 14 year old school girl taken before she took her own life because, her parents say, of the information she was accessing which ‘glorified’ depression, self-harm and suicide on the social media site ‘Instagram’. A few weeks ago I was just introducing the subject …
Bristol as a culturally diverse region Bristol is the tenth largest city in the UK, with a rapidly growing child population. It is often ranked as one of the happiest ,most creative, and most culturally diverse places to live. There are 91 different languages spoken from 180 countries, 45 different religions, and currently 22% of …
What do you think the number one area schools have been questioning me about lately is? You may/may not be surprised to know that it is actually around sharing of safeguarding information, particularly in relation to changes to data protection that GDPR has brought with it. My standard answer is that very little has changed …
A few weeks ago I was honoured to deliver a keynote address at the Child Protection in Education 2018 Conference held by Optimus Education in Bristol. This was the second year the conference had been held in the City, and it provided another useful opportunity for Designated Safeguarding Leads and their colleagues to get up …
What a start to the new academic year we have had! In the first 10 days, Mandy Parry Training Associates delivered 14 sessions of training, visited ten different settings, trained over six hundred participants – and fielded dozens of requests for places on our new Open Courses or our inhouse training. It’s been challenging, but …
Image taken from: Bentley, H. et al (2018) How safe are our children? The most comprehensive overview of child protection in the UK 2018. London: NSPCC. Most people are aware of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children – the NSPCC – which is the largest charity in the UK specialising in …
I am now a fully nationally accredited Safer Recruitment trainer as last year I spent a couple of days in the Midlands being training by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, who are experts on understanding and combatting sexual abuse. The course was a real eye opener for me personally, even though I have been delivering …