News

Learning from statutory reviews.

The Safeguarding in Education Team has conducted a review of learning from statutory and non-statutory reviews of incidents occurring during the last academic year (2020-21). The slides shared at the meeting contain information which is currently embargoed, but themes around these incidents can been shared Please click here to access.

There was a lot of information to process and this will require additional time and consideration. It was proposed that the Learning and Review Group is re-established, to be led by Helen Macdonald.

If you are interested in supporting developing measurable objectives around lessons learned, please email helen.macdonald@bristol.gov.uk

As many of the statutory reviews centred around children who are affected by serious youth violence and CCE, Ross Moody gave an update on what work the Education Inclusion Managers are undertaking:

• 34 learners responded to the Weapons in Schools pathway, with 91% being able to stay at their school. Learning around positive practice of this is to be applied to bringing substances into school.
• Funding has been secured from the Violence Reduction Unit to give 6 secondary schools £24,000 to employ additional resources to support children at risk of CCE.
• Safer Options will be running virtual webinars throughout the year targeted around CCE related issues. These sessions will be cascaded when confirmed.
• Development of a pilot project between some primary and secondary settings in North Bristol to proactively share information around CCE to aid transitions.

Educational support following critical incidents

There has been a concern voiced that education settings will first know about an incident from the Bristol Post or via social media. The Safeguarding in Education Team and Safer Options have reviewed the response and subsequent support offered to Bristol settings. This has not been consistent or sustainable. The members will review the proposal for standardising this process so effective support can be established.

s.175 Audit

Due to capacity issues and increased demand on service from the Safeguarding in Education Team, there has been a delay in this being completed. Recommendations from the established Task and Finish Group from different phase representatives are being acted upon around the following:

• Reduce the number of questions – this has currently been reduced from 411 to approximately 150. This still needs to be refined and agreed upon considering new versions of statutory guidance.
• Removed questions will help form guidance to allow for more structured support for governance around what good, adequate, and poor responses look like to assist with quality assurance – in progress in line with previous point.
• Remove the ‘task completion’ element which is quite static, but allow for meaningful change for practice development and growth– recommendation to review time limit, giving more time, but also set reminders with calendar invites multiple times an academic year to maintain progress.
• Review the format, supporting an ability to pick up and drop to reflect work commitments and develop a format to allow for true collaboration – decision to stop using SMART survey and send out survey as an Excel document which can be submitted back to the Local Safeguarding Partnership for data collection.
• A reduced version for part time ALPs/Providers – develop this in line with new guidance from Keeping Children Safe in Out of School Settings.

It is anticipated that this will be ready for Term 2 following sign off from the Education Reference Group members and the Task and Finish Group.

Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment

There is a KBSP multi-agency review group in place to review the Harmful Sexualised Behaviour Protocol. This would need to be in line with new statutory and non-statutory guidance.

• Practice has been clarified with the police around reporting incidents of sexual violence – settings must report all incidents of rape, assault by penetration and sexual assault to the police via 101. They must also be explicit that they need to be involved in any subsequent strategy to offer a view regarding criminality or vulnerability around whether the child who has enacted harm has suffered abuse themselves.
• The Peer on Peer working group continue to meet to discuss developing more resources/guidance around how education settings should manage harm which does not meet a statutory threshold, support in engaging with parents and how to manage risk effectively.

If you would like to be involved in developing this work please contact Jessica.curtis@bristol.gov.uk

Police Safeguarding Notifications – Data Officers

There have been robust attempts to lobby and obtain funding for the 2 Data Officers in the Safeguarding in Education Team who operationalise the notifications, attend the Daily Incident Review Meeting (DIRM), and coordinate reports for MARAC.

The Data Officers also support with processing vulnerable children’s lists (those open to Social Care and those with EHCPs).

Public health has supported with funding for 1 post. The Safeguarding in Education Team has not yet been successful in obtaining match funding from other statutory agencies. Whilst we remain hopeful, colleagues currently in the roles have been served notice on their current contracts.

It is important (yet regrettable) to notify the education workforce that there will likely be significant disruption to the above processes and changes to service whilst we attempt to work with agencies to balance work commitments and capacity to meet them.

This will likely remain high on any agendas to ensure that colleagues are kept up to date and can modify processes accordingly.

Amended offer to workforce proposal (DSL networks)

The Safeguarding in Education Team is small and facing significant capacity issues in light of the above note. There are complex organisational processes inhibiting recruitment and retainment. This has led to the team coming to the end of Term 1 potentially halved.

• We are hoping to protect our core business, but to develop and respond to changing demands on the workforce and support accessibility of resources for wider staff colleagues (governance and senior leadership teams). We propose that we reduce the number of DSL networks to 2 sessions (3 times a year) with one morning and one afternoon session. We will utilise the additional session to develop a video resource which can be shared with colleagues who are not able to attend the network meetings.
• This will be trialled and developed after the first round of DSL network meetings and then reviewed in the new academic year 2022-23.

Child Protection Conferences in schools

The KBSP have asked whether schools could support hosting Child Protection Conferences for a more familiar and friendly environment to support families during a difficult time. It was noted that schools, where possible, would be happy to accommodate this.  However this should be assessed on a case by case basis and informed by the family/child around their views and wishes.

It would be helpful to consider what resources/facilities schools have. A questionnaire will be developed for DSL networks and fed back to the CP Admin team who can discuss with settings when there is a need for a conference.

RSHE Update

As noted in previous meetings, funding from the DfE around support for the RSHE Hub has ceased. The resources and guidance that were collated will be accessible on the Safeguarding in Education/Healthy Schools websites respectively.

• There has been funding to prioritise some of the current and salient topics now. Sessions have been commissioned for the PSHE Association to facilitate sessions for the workforce around developing the curriculum.
• Further support is being considered and resourced to develop RSHE networks in Bristol.
• Details of both points will be made available to the workforce once confirmed.

Supplementary Education/Out of School setting.

There has been an increase in the use of out of school settings during the pandemic and lockdowns whereby schools were not as accessible. Parents were looking to supplement their children’s educational needs. Whilst there were benevolent intentions, there also was a need identified from various partnerships regarding compliance with safeguarding guidance and legislation.

To support the development of these organisations and ensure suitable safeguarding standards are enacted, a Task and Finish Group was set up to review the infrastructure of training, networks, and relevant information. For larger providers who may be providing supplementary education as an Alternative Learning Provider, there will be a compliance with the Local Authority’s commissioning standards (PALS framework). 

Further details of networks, mailing lists and a centralised information for Out of School Settings will be made available via - https://www.bristolsafeguardingineducation.org/out-of-school-settings/