Safeguarding in Education – Lessons will be learnt – 206

Mike is joined by a former Assistant Chief Constable and a former Chief Constable this week for an extremely helpful update on what schools should be doing around Safeguarding, following some recent changes. Mike Glanville and Martin Baker founded ‘One Team Logic‘ to provide high quality safeguarding software as a service across a wide range of organisations responsible for protecting children, young people and vulnerable adults. You may have heard or already be using their ‘My Concern’ software. Throughout his career, Mike led on a number of critical incidents and major crime investigations involving vulnerable children and adults. He was chair of the Local Criminal Justice Board in Dorset and represented the police at the Local Children’s Safeguarding Board. Mike is also an experienced school governor and is currently Chair of Governors at a small primary school in West Dorset. Martin’s final policing role was as the Chief Constable of  Dorset Police. He was awarded HM The Queen’s Medal for Distinguished Police Service (QPM). He is also an experience school governor and a Director of a Multi-Academy Trust. When Mike and Martin came to the end of their police careers, they wanted to continue to help everyone involved in safeguarding in schools. “It takes a heavy toll on those people who are responsible for safeguarding if they haven’t got support to do their job and can’t support the young people that they are responsible for because they haven’t got the tools and support to be able to provide the same level of service they feel they really ought to be giving.” Often, it can feel very lonely in a school safeguarding role because it’s not clear what information you should be sharing and with whom. In serious case reviews over the past several years, similar themes emerge such as communication – how agencies are sharing or not sharing information with each other. This is one of the areas Mike and Martin are trying to help schools with. September 2018 Safeguarding updates to be aware of * The new version of Working together to safeguard children * The new version of Keeping children safe in education Mike and Martin go through the changes we all need to be aware of in the episode. “If you Google ‘Lessons will be learnt, you’ll probably get about 4 million hits.” Top tips for Designated Safeguarding Leads Always begin with the end in mind – have you got a plan and does it reflect beginning with the end in mind? “Every school has a school improvement plan – have they also got a safeguarding improvement plan?” Where to start for DSLs: * Government leadership and management – are you clear that safeguarding is a priority and what is your plan for turning this into something tangible? * Prevention – what do I need to know to prevent things happening? * Recording concerns – how and who by? * Case management – end-to-end processes. * Information management – security and sharing and retention. * People and teams – are you clear about the support you offer to everybody? * The Big Picture – how can you see trends? * Lessons learnt – how do you embed lessons from your own professional practice and recent research? How helpful are technological systems for managing safeguarding in a school? Mike and Martin believe that technology is useful because:...