I’m also delighted that the post of Senior Safeguarding Practitioner has now been advertised. While replacing Caroline will be quite a challenge, we hope that you can help us to promote this advert to anyone who would be interested. We have such an amazingly talented community of safeguarding professionals, we are looking for someone who would welcome the chance to share their skills, passion but most of all their desire to support schools and settings in this exciting role.  

We’re grateful to Claire Birch, Community Safety Officer for sharing the message with the link below. Some useful resources for both staff and parents on a range of topics from children’s on-line world to community safety.  

'We are really pleased to let you know we now have six bitesize recordings on our YouTube Channel 'Lets Talk Devon' The sessions range from just 19 minutes long to a maximum of half an hour and they offer our usual tips and techniques along with details of support services, so please grab yourself a cuppa and take a look.' 

In line with the statutory functions, we have within DCC, we would like to keep up to date with professionals within schools to allow ease of communication between schools and LA. 

In order to do this, we're asking schools to complete the form half termly. The information provided will be held centrally in Education and Learning to aid our service users to support/ make contact with the correct personnel. 

When completing the form, if the same staff member holds multiple roles, then please provide the same name and email in the appropriate role boxes. 

A hate crime is any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on: 

· a person’s race or perceived race 

· a person’s religion or perceived religion 

· a person’s sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation 

· a person’s disability or perceived disability 

· a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender 

The personal characteristics above are those monitored by central government and are covered in statue within the criminal justice system. Police should also record and flag non-monitored personal characteristic as hate crime where there is the perception of hostility or prejudice towards a person’s characteristic. Devon & Cornwall Police monitor Sex/Gender (Misogyny/Misandry) as an addition strand. 

Many thanks to Cary Ann Ginns for creating this document! 👇

'We wanted to bring to your attention reports we’ve received from Torbay about a trend in young people having concealed blades, such as blades concealed in pens, keys. Torbay have seen this with some young people, including links to self-harm. From what we’ve heard it appears the items can be purchased online (Shein was mentioned). 

We’re not aware of any reports of similar incidents in Devon, however given our proximity to Torbay we wanted to make you aware.'

The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) announced a new definition of extremism and engagement principles for Government departments in England, together with accompanying guidance.  

The new definition of extremism is set out as below: 

Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to: 

 1. Negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or, 

 2. undermine, overturn, or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or

 3. intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).  

The definition also sets out the types of behaviour that are indicative of the kind of promotion or advancement which may be relevant to the definition.  

Does this change how Prevent operates? 

The new DLUHC extremism definition and engagement principles will work alongside Prevent by supporting government decision making on who to fund and engage with.  

The threshold for making a referral to the Prevent programme is set out in existing guidance, including the Prevent Duty Guidance, and will remain the same. 

The new definition and engagement principles focus on extremism as a broad issue, whilst Prevent remains specifically focussed on radicalisation into terrorism.  We have significantly strengthened Prevent in the year since the Independent Review of Prevent, to ensure tackling terrorist ideologies is at its core.  

As you know, the aim of Prevent is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.  Prevent does this by intervening early to support those who are susceptible to radicalisation. It is underpinned by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act which created the duty to prevent people from ‘being drawn into terrorism’.  Therefore, from a Prevent perspective we are only interested in extremism which can be reasonably linked to terrorism, such as where it might lead to radicalisation into participating in or supporting terrorism. This is fully in line with the Independent Review of Prevent (IRP) recommendation that Prevent should return to first principles, focusing on tackling the ideological causes of terrorism.  The new definition of extremism does not change this. 

Prevent Referrals and Channel 

If there is a concern about potential radicalisation or a reason to believe that someone is at risk of becoming involved in terrorism or supporting it, a Prevent referral should be made to police, who will assess whether the person is suitable to be considered by a Channel panel for support.    

When a concern is first identified, the notice, check, share procedure should be applied as outlined in the Prevent duty GOV.UK awareness course, before submitting the referral to the police.  The police will consider whether the person referred may be at risk of escalating towards participating in acts of terrorism or otherwise engaging in terrorism-related activity, if left unaddressed by authorities. Where considered suitable, a Channel panel will offer support to the person.  The Prevent duty guidance and Channel duty guidance give further details of this, and Channel decision making is underpinned by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act.   

The new definition of extremism does not change existing guidance.   

Training 

In the coming months Prevent is rolling out face-to-face awareness, referrals and ideology training for all frontline professionals, in addition to the existing Prevent GOV.UK online training package.  Alongside this, we will be rolling out the new Prevent Assessment Framework and related training, and will ensure greater rigour, consistency and proportionality as part of the decision-making process post referral. The new training and tools will ensure that Prevent is focused on its first principles of tacking the ideological causes of terrorism. 

Engagement Principles 

Michael Gove SoS of DLUHC also announced new government engagement principles. These principles have been put in place to support government departments in decision-making around who they fund and engage and add some rigour and consistency to that process. The principles will not apply to local authorities. Local authorities should already have risk assessments and venue hire policies in place as per the Prevent duty guidance and toolkit.  

There are already comprehensive due diligence processes in place to inform decisions on Prevent funding and engagement. These were further strengthened following the publication of the IRP in February 2023. We have shared our experience of comprehensive due diligence processes with DLUHC to help inform their wider system design. We do not currently anticipate any changes to our process but are reviewing in view of the new engagement principles to ensure alignment.  If any changes are required, we shall communicate that in due course.  

Impact on partners 

The new definition and engagement principles won’t apply outside of central government and there are clear exceptions for engagement with public authorities or for purposes such as law enforcement.   

The definition and engagement principles may have implications for different government departments and it may take some time to fully understand how best to apply them. While Prevent is concerned with radicalisation into terrorism, other departments may have interests or business activities which are more affected by the extremism definition. We should be careful to draw distinctions. However, for all partners with Prevent responsibilities and for all specified authorities under the Prevent duty the expectation is that Prevent continues to focus on radicalisation into terrorism. Please refer partners to existing guidance, such as the Prevent duty guidance or GOV.UK resources on Prevent, if necessary.    

The Department for Education, CT Policing, Department for Health & Social Care will be updating their own networks too and where possible we shall ensure the LA Prevent leads are sighted on those communications. 

If you have any concerns about today’s announcement and how it may impact Prevent, then please speak to your HSG Prevent Adviser in the first instance. 

During the development of the Devon Schools Wellbeing Partnership we heard how challenging it can be to deliver PSHE in school. Whether that is through staff training, timetabling, creating the right classroom environment, or accessing teaching resources.  

As part of the training and resource offer of the DSWP, Public Health Devon are offering funded PSHE Association membership for 1 year to help support schools with PSHE delivery. Additionally, for schools who register, funding is also available for PSHE Association online training modules – the choice of topic is yours depending on the needs of your staff and school.  

If your school already purchases a PSHE programme, this membership may provide complementary guidance and resources. If you already subscribe to the PSHE Association, please still sign-up and send us an email at dswp@devon.gov.uk.  

To take up the offer all you need to do is complete this form by 28th March to register your interest, and we will be in touch with further details.  

Consultation Line Reminder – if you have a case which, after consulting with colleagues and the Devon Levels of Need Tool,  you are still unsure around the threshold to put in a Request for Support (or whether parental consent will put the child at further imminent risk), professionals can contact a Front Door Social Worker on 01392 388428 to discuss the case with the child/family details anonymised.  This line is purely for professional consultation and must not be passed to families for them to make their own Request for Support, they should still do this through the main Front Door telephone number. 

Recent Ofsted Feedback – at the time of writing we don’t have an official report on the recent monitoring visit to the Front Door by Ofsted, however the general feedback is positive with acknowledgment that changes are being embedded which will continue to support the safety of the children of Devon.   

REACH Reminder – our REACH colleagues inform us that Safer Me submissions (including People of Concern and Places of Concern) have dropped considerably, with some area MACE meetings receiving few to no submissions for the recent monthly meetings.  This is a concern as we know as professionals that the exploitation of children is still happening in our county. Visit The Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership website for more information and how to submit your concerns. 

Challenging Decisions Reminder – as professionals it is our duty to challenge decisions within our settings and with wider agencies, such as Children Social Care, when we feel that a decision made is not in the child’s best interest or will put them at risk of further or continued harm.  The Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership has a Case Resolution Protocol to follow if you wish to challenge a decision made by a CSC professional and there is more information on this and on challenging decisions within your setting in our One Minute Guide No 20 Challenging Decisions

Having a chronology of concerns is key if you are trying to build a picture of not only the child’s lived experience and the risk to them, but also what has been tried (including conversations with parents around Early Help), and whether this has been successful.  Include which professionals you have spoken to/communicated with and when, also Requests for Support submitted and the outcome of these. We know this is time consuming, but it will support you should you wish to challenge a decision or (worst case scenario) there is a review of what could have been done better by all professionals to protect a child.   

As a small team within the wider Front Door setting, we are aware that there are frustrations from some school DSLs as to why some of their Requests for Support are not accepted by the Front Door, or that outcomes are not what was hoped for, with some education professionals feeling they are carrying risk that is too high.  Our advice is to continue to keep the best chronology you can and to professionally challenge every time you feel it necessary – don’t forget there is always the professional's consultation line and the Early Help area managers who you can run past plans, seek further signposting and support. 

 Sue, Kathrin & Hannah – Education in the Front Door team. 

Following an upgrade on their data base systems FearFree are asking that anyone making referrals to their organisation go to this page of their website and follow the appropriate links. 

If you go down the page, you will see six buttons: 

Professional referral for adults - Please use this button to complete a referral for an adult (victim or perpetrator) to our Domestic Abuse service 

Professional referral for Children - Please use this button to complete a referral for a   child or young person to our Domestic Abuse Service 

Get support for yourself - For adult service users to self-refer to our Domestic Abuse Service 

Refer a child - For children and young people (and their families) to self- refer to our Domestic Abuse Service 

ITRS Professional referral for children - Please use this button to refer a child or young person to our Interpersonal Trauma Response Service (ITRS) 

ITRS Professional Referral form - Please use this button to refer an adult (victim or perpetrator) our Interpersonal Trauma Response Service (ITRS)

Whilst FearFree hope to have achieved a seamless transition between referral methods, if you / your client do not hear from them within 5 working days, or you have any problems accessing the new forms on the website, please do contact FearFree to ensure they have safely received your referral. You can contact their teams by: