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Fortnightly Safeguarding Briefing 7th October 2019 Safeguarding Network - Confidence in safeguarding |
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Welcome to your latest briefingIt has been an interesting couple of weeks on the political front with party conferences in full swing. From Labour we have heard suggestions about what should happen in relation to the current private / public education split, proposals that Ofsted would be abolished replaced with a system of peer review and a revamping of the Sure Start system to name but a few. From the Conservatives we have seen commitments to create a Youth Investment Fund with a commitment to building 60 new youth centres and additional money for tackling county lines. In this update:
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![]() Serious Case Review: KN15KN15 was a 13 year old girl who died after going missing following an argument with her family. It was agreed that the circumstances of her death met a criteria for a Serious Case Review. The overview report was published in March this year, but it has recently been added to the NSPCC Serious Case Review Repository. The case review found that whilst there had been a lot of professional involvement in the child's life there were some key learning points:
In reading the overview report there is little that has not been seen in previous reviews. It is therefore important that we focus on ensuring that current practice is as good as well informed as it can be. Safeguarding Network can help keep your staff up to date, with subscribing schools having access to our update packages. |
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![]() Missing childrenOne of the issues that the review referred to above was that KN15 had a history of being missing, and that there were occasions when her parents had not reported her as missing to the Police. For KN15 it appears that these missing episodes started when she was 11 and would last for 1-2 hours at a time. We know that there can be a number of push and pull factors that lead to children going missing - in the case of KN15 it appears that the home environment and things that she felt were happening were the driver for her leaving the home. For other children and young people it can be the lure of things that they are being offered with this being potential grooming for criminal exploitation. It is important that we consider missing episodes, no matter how brief, when thinking about what we know about a child. As the review for KN15 identifies it all contributes to a wider understanding of the lived experience of the child and professional curiosity should by used to challenge our thinking. Labelling, which was also key in the case of KN15 can distort our perceptions, wrongly reassuring us or giving us false hope (for example labelling someone streetwise). Safeguarding Network has a page relating to missing children, and subscribing schools can download and run our update package with staff. |
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KCSiE UpdateOn the 1st October there was a small change to the text of Keeping Children Safe in Education with paragraphs 164 and 165 being updated. These are in Part 3 (Safer Recruitment) and specifically refer to the legal duty on schools and colleges to refer to the Disclosure and Barring Service in specific situations. The changes arguably represent a tidying up of the text, with the two new paragraphs being as follows:
There is no underlying change to the requirements of when to refer or the processes that should be followed. |
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Who are we?Safeguarding Network recognise that the demands on schools are increasing from every aspect. Safeguarding is no exception. Using our front-line safeguarding experience and knowledge we develop resources to help schools meet their safeguarding requirements with the aim of helping lighten the load. Visit https://safeguarding.network/subscribe for more information. |
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