The Safeguarding Policy
Purpose
Seventy20ten takes seriously its responsibility to protect and safeguard the welfare of children, young people and adults. The purpose of this Safeguarding policy is to provide a clear direction to colleagues and others about expected behaviour when dealing with safeguarding concerns. The intention of this policy is to make explicit our commitment to the development and implementation of good safeguarding practice and sound procedures to ensure that safeguarding concerns, referrals and monitoring are handled sensitively and professionally.
Seventy20ten is committed to ensuring that effective safeguarding systems and processes are in place to safeguard all learners, children and adults as outlined in this policy.
Seventy20ten has a statutory duty to ensure that all learners, children, young people, and adults with care and support needs are safe in accordance with current legislation such as, The Children’s Act 1989 and the Children’s Act 2004 and Keeping children safe in education, statutory guidance for schools and education (DfE 2018) issued under section 175 of the Education Act 2002. This policy has been written following guidance within “Working Together to Safeguard Children” 2018, and the Care Act 2014 which defines adults that require safeguarding as being those who have care and support needs and cannot protect themselves from harm.
Seventy20ten is committed to linking with employer Safeguarding Leads in order that good governance is assured and that safeguarding information is disseminated or escalated as appropriate. The Designated Safeguarding Officer will ensure that local safeguarding themes identified that may affect the safety of learners are made known to colleagues who have direct contact with learners. Where a safeguarding concern is identified we will work in line with the relevant local multi-agency procedures
Seventy20ten have learners from age 16 years and above. Learners may have contact with adults that are at risk and children for whom there are safeguarding concerns, or may themselves be experiencing or at risk of abuse so must feel safe and able to escalate any concern. We will create a culture of vigilance where welfare is promoted and where timely and appropriate safeguarding action is taken for those who need help, or who may be at risk of, or are likely to experience harm, including those who hold extremist views and are at risk of radicalisation. Seventy20ten believes in and promotes British Values.
Aim
This policy aims to provide structure and guidance to Seventry20ten staff on dealing with potential safeguarding concerns and the process that they must follow. Learners must feel protected and safe and know how to raise concerns and staff must be clear on safeguarding procedures.
In pursuit of these aims and to ensure that colleagues and learners are aware of safeguarding requirements, we will:
Provide a safe environment for learners.
Ensure that staff are fully aware of their roles and responsibilities.
Ensure effective safeguarding processes are in place.
Ensure that learners feel safe and listened to and that staff will take appropriate action where there are concerns.
Ensure that staff and learners know who to escalate any concerns to.
Ensure all staff and relevant parties know how to contact the Safeguarding Lead.
Ensure that colleagues and learners will be confident that their concerns will be escalated and responded to accordingly.
Ensure that processes are in place to respond to disclosures, report concerns and to ensure that any learning is shared.
Ensure that they have a Safguarding Lead professional (Designated Safeguarding Officer) responsible for Safeguarding and who has received appropriate training and support for this role and who works within a role description.
Ensure that Information for learners, relevant to safeguarding is shared through the apprenticeship handbook, the learner forum and in curriculum planning.
Ensure that staff can access relevant and up to date safeguarding information pertinant to the local area and to the environment.
Identify and support learners who are likely to be at risk of harm. This would include but not be exclusive to those who are victims of domestic violence, modern slavery, FGM, Honour Based Violence, exploitation, Forced Marriage or those at risk of radicalisation.
Promote a culture which promotes and upholds the British values of mutual respect, tolerance of others with different faiths, beliefs or none, the rule of law and democracy.
Ensure both colleagues and learners are aware of the systems which support safeguarding and that these form part of colleague and learner inductions and mandatory quality and safety training.
Ensure that colleagues understand their responsibilities in being alert to the signs of abuse and their responsibility for referring their concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Officer (DSO) and Social services (adults or children) and/or other agencies as relevant.
Keep securely, written records of concerns about learners, even where there is no need to refer the matter immediately.
Educate learners to understand and make informed decisions regarding, well being, safety, safeguarding, extreme views, British Values, national and local themes which may affect their safety.
The Board will:
Have representation from the Safeguarding lead.
Approve and review this safeguarding policy and incorporated safeguarding processes.
Ensure that safeguarding will be a standard item on the Board agenda.
Review the safeguarding training compliance of staff in line with updates such as September 2019 RC14 (Upskirting, violent crime, management of safeguarding, online abuse and safer recruitment).
Discuss and review disclosures of harm, abuse, safety and risk and ensure appropriate action has been undertaken and learning shared.
Receive and review a Safeguarding report from the Safeguarding Lead who will attend the Board.
The Designated Safeguarding Officer must produce a quarterly safeguarding report to the Board outling any concerns, risks, good practice and shared learning which has been ratified by the Directors.
Introduction
Safeguarding is the action we take to promote the welfare of children and adults. Everyone who comes into contact with children, adults with care and support needs and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children.
Seventy20ten will refer any concerns if a learner is at risk of/or experiencing harm or discloses that a child or a vulnerable adult is at risk of/or experiencing harm. Any staff member can report a safeguarding concern to adult or children’s services but where appropriate, advice and support should be obtained by the Designated Safeguarding Officer. Where there are concerns for adults that do not have care and support needs it may be appropriate to sign post only to support services but advice must be sought from the Designated Safeguarding Officer.
All staff will receive training which will include Basic Safeguarding Training as part of the induction process. All staff that have contact with children or adults will have Prevent training, Safeguarding adults and children Level 2 as a minimum.
Responsibilities for Safeguarding
Edward Middleton
Director and Designated Safeguarding Officer
Ed.Middleton@Seventy20ten.co.uk
Kevin Deasy
Director and Partner
Kevin.Deasy@Seventy20ten.co.uk
The Designated Safeguarding Officer
Responsible for advising and supporting staff in the management of safeguarding where there are concerns about children and adults
Responsible for liaising with the employer Safeguarding Leads to obtain relevant local Safeguarding Information
A full outline of the Designated Safeguarding Officer roles will be identified within their role description.
All staff
Responsible for ensuring they are aware of the contents of this policy and to implement it as relevant.
Responsible for ensuring they have undertaken safeguarding training at the level required for their role and to seek advice, support and supervision when concerned about the safety of a child or vulnerable adult in cases where domestic violence and abuse is known or suspected.
Safeguarding Process for Reporting Concerns
Seventy20ten expects all staff, learners and contractors to be alert to any concerns about the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and to report any such concerns they may have, however apparently trivial, to the Designated Safeguarding Officer. While individual staff members have the right to report incidents directly to external agencies, such as children’s social services, where possible they should consult first with the Safeguarding Lead.
The staff member who has been made aware of a safeguarding concern should in the first instance report verbally to the Designated Safeguarding Officer and also make a full note of the facts that gave rise to their concern as soon as is practicable. The Designated Officer will ensure that the incident report has been completed.
It is the responsibility of the Designated Safeguarding Officer notified of a concern to consider the seriousness of the risk or concern and if they deem it appropriate, to refer to the appropriate statutory or voluntary agencies in accordance with the specific guidance and training they have received.
The Designated Safeguarding Officer will be responsible for ensuring the child, young person or vulnerable adult is in a safe environment until the appropriate local agencies have become involved. Where appropriate they will reassure the child, young person or vulnerable adult concerned of the process underway, and if appropriate to ascertain any relevant factual information. However they should only ask questions of the child, young person or vulnerable adult that are necessary to clarify whether the child, young person or vulnerable adult is alleging that abuse has taken place.
If the incident or information involves an allegation against a Seventy20ten staff member, the Designated Safeguarding Officer will support a referral to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO)
If the incident or information involves an allegation against a learner, the DSO will work in line with the safeguarding policy and the Disciplinary policy. Contact will be made with the learner’s employer and steps taken to ensure the safety and well being of the learner and others. The learner or staff concerned will be offered the opportunity to receive appropriate advice or support.
Preventing Violent Extremism
Preventing the radicalisation of students/ learners is part of a Government initiative to develop a robust counter terrorism programme. The UK faces a range of terrorist threats. All the terrorist groups who pose a threat to us seek to radicalise and recruit people to their cause. The Government Prevent strategy seeks to:
Respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views. To this end we will promote British values through teaching, learning and assessment processes.
Provide practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support.
Work with a wide range of sectors where there are risks of radicalisation which need to be addressed, including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, the internet and health and social care.
All Seventy20ten staff must follow the company Prevent policy and referral procedures. Any Prevent concerns should be escalated to the Designated Safeguarding Officer; this will include concerns around a colleague or learner’s behaviour or a request to share information.
Statutory Framework
This policy is in line with guidance from the following legislation and statutory guidance:
The Children Act 1989 & Section 11 of the Children Act 2004
The Education Act 2002 (Section 175)
The Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005
Dealing with Allegation of Abuse Against Teachers and Other Staff (2011)
Working Together to Safeguard Children (March 2018)
Keeping Children Safe in Education (Sept 2016)
Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings, 2015, Ofsted
Prevent Within Schools, a toolkit for schools May 2015