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Several Education Providers meet with Wolverhampton Safeguarding Together on a quarterly basis. This is an opportunity to raise any emerging issues, highlight any good practice and be kept up to date with the work of the partnership.
Below is a summary of discussions had at the 18th February 2022.
There have been two Task and Finish meetings where we have focused on the current offer and identifying any gaps.
Amanda Evans from Public Health is doing quite a bit of work around this topic for Secondary Schools and is due to send out a survey to schools to get an understanding of what support schools need for delivering this as part of RSE. The Task and Finish Group have also taken away some actions to look at how this can be incorporated in Primary Schools.
A useful resources page will soon be live on the WST Website, once this is live a link will be shared with all members of the Education Providers group with an ask that you disseminate it within your schools.
Anita Notta, from the Khalsa Academy is working closely with Me Too and Core Voices to commission a piece of work (Kings and Queens) that focuses on this subject. Several surveys have been developed and will be shared with Khalsa's SLT, Students and Parents - these will be offered in both English and Punjabi. It is envisaged that this piece of work will be able to be accessed by all schools across the city.
All state-funded and independent establishments were sent the online Audit link via email and the Headteachers Bulletin (with the support from Phil Leivers, Head of Service Educational Excellence).
Responses:
- 101 establishments completed the online audit
- 48 of the 101 establishments emailed documentation in support of their audits
- 17 establishments were unable to complete the audit in the given time
- 17 establishments were resent the link for an extended 2-week period and allowed to submit again following an incomplete or missing return
- 1 school is now closed
- 1 school completed the audit after the deadline via Excel and emailed supporting documents.
- The 13 remainder establishments took part in the dip sampling audit. They all provided supporting documentation in support of their responses.
Finding from the three areas that establishments were asked to provide evidence for (online audits)
1. Safeguarding Policies
- All establishments have a Designated Safeguarding Lead (Deputy and Teacher for CiC).
- All establishments have a current Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy, and most were able to show that their policy for the new academic year was prepared for approval by Governors.
- The majority of establishments had a current suite of policies relating to Safeguarding e.g. Prevent, Behaviour, Health & Safety and Code of Conduct.
- The majority of establishments were keen to show records from whole staff training, where staff have read and understood policy requirements.
- Safeguarding training is part of the School Induction.
2. Safeguarding training evidence
- All establishments were able to show some evidence of training. This included mandatory and non-mandatory and included training provided by WST and other independent providers.
- Some establishments were not able to show certificates for WST training, despite having dates for attendance.
- Clarification is needed regarding the requirement for mandatory courses, specifically multi-agency training, which should be renewed in line with WST guidance.
3. Reporting to Governors
- There was strong evidence showing a huge variety in both content and quality.
- There were a few establishments who had good evidence of improvements to address safeguarding concerns
- Most establishments shared factual numbers for CP/CIN/Early Help cases.
- Particular good practice – the reports showed good evidence of safeguarding training, the context of the school, notes regarding supervision. More than 50% of providers had safeguarding information embedded in the Headteacher report to governors whilst others had a separate safeguarding focussed report.
- Some establishments showed evidence of link Governors reports specifically for safeguarding and/or included safeguarding questions asked during other governor visits.
WST Update
The Threshold Document is currently being reviewed, once this has gone through the governance structure, it will be shared with this group. Depending on the extent of the changes within the document, there may be a need for an update on the Threshold Training.
The Neglect Strategy is also being reviewed and we plan to incorporate a recent CSPR, where neglect is a feature, within the strategy to keep it current. The Neglect Toolkit will also be re-launched as it was launched just before the pandemic and hasn't been embedded as well as hoped.
Training
The calendar of multiagency learning and development opportunities is now available on the WST website and will commence in April 2022.
Safeguarding leads should complete the core training and then update every 2 years by attending Working Together Update. If you are a Safeguarding lead, please check when your update is due and book a place accordingly. Dates are available across the year to enable planning well in advance.
If a session is fully booked, please ensure you add yourself to the waiting as we will organise further dates if required.
To make bookings you need to have an individual account, if you move organisations please update the details of the original account. Do not set up a new account as you will not be able to see your full training record.
Your record of training and access to certificates is available if you log on to your account via the WST Website and go to My Events.
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