What is Safeguarding Blog

In this blog, we discuss what safeguarding is, the role child protection plays in safeguarding and important information those within the education sector need to know about their safeguarding responsibilities.

If you work within the education sector it is important you understand your duties to protect learners and keep them safe from harm. While the concept of safeguarding is very serious, we don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by the different categories of safeguarding. We hope this blog will concisely explain safeguarding, different safeguarding issues and the benefits of early intervention.

What is Safeguarding?

Welsh Government guidance Keeping Learners Safe (KLS) has this definition in their guidance; “Safeguarding means protecting children from harm, abuse and neglect.” This includes:

Protecting children from abuse and maltreatment
Preventing harm to children’s health or development
Ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
Taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes

The Difference between Child Protection and Safeguarding

Charity organisation NSPCC explains that child protection falls under the umbrella term of safeguarding.

Child protection focuses on “protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.”

While safeguarding is “the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm.”

Your Organisations Duty

It is vital that all establishments and organisations that work directly with or come into contact with children, young people and vulnerable adults have thorough safeguarding policies and procedures. These policies and procedures must ensure that every individual has the right to equal protection from harm regardless of their age, disability, gender, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.

Establishing robust safeguarding policies and procedures means that the children and young people within your care are kept safe from harm and from other adults or children who may pose a risk to them. Organisations that should have safeguarding policies include:

Schools
Other childcare facilities
Hospitals
Sports clubs
Voluntary organisations and clubs
Community organisations and clubs
Faith groups
Private sector providers

Early Help / Early Intervention

An important concept in safeguarding is the idea of early help or early intervention in which children and young people are offered support before a crisis point is reached with their well-being and general safety.

The Early Intervention Foundation defines early intervention as “identifying and providing effective early support to children and young people who are at risk of poor outcomes.”

Examples of early intervention can include:

School-based programmes to improve children’s social and emotional skills
Government support programmes for disadvantaged students such as free school meals
Mentoring schemes for young people vulnerable to involvement in crime

Early intervention also comes in the form of organisations having a proactive attitude to safeguarding and preventing future problems from occurring rather than just reacting when safeguarding concerns occur. This includes addressing seemingly small issues before they develop into massive safeguarding problems. For example:

If a boy has a black eye, this could be an accident or a sign of abuse at home
If a child comes to school without a coat in winter, they could be forgetful, or this could be a sign that the child is being neglected
A young girl starts to wear expensive-looking jewellery, may have celebrated a birthday or could be the victim of grooming
A group of children teasing a new student can develop into hurtful bullying
Boys who pull the hair of girls or try to look up their skirts can lead to problems of child-on-child abuse or toxic masculinity

Another strand of early intervention also involves educating students on certain topics to prevent certain safeguarding concerns such as:

Educating children on online safety to avoid grooming and online stranger danger
Educating children and young people on relationships and sex education to change attitudes toward consent, peer-pressure, victim blaming and toxic masculinity
Educating children on the human rights act to prevent discrimination towards individuals

Types of Safeguarding Concerns

There are many types of safeguarding concerns to look out for within the education sector. This list is by no means conclusive but offers an idea of different safeguarding issues and concerns that children and young people face today.

Abuse including physical, emotional, mental, sexual and neglect
Bullying including online and in person
Peer-on-peer or child-on-child abuse including peer-pressure
Mental health and wellbeing concerns such as depression, stress, anxiety
Online safety
Grooming
Maltreatment
Risky sexual behaviour
Stranger danger
Eating disorders
Learning difficulties such as ADHD, Autism and Dyslexia
Self-harm
Suicide
Gang-related violence
Drug runners and county lines
Allegations of assault
Allegations against members of staff
Low-level concerns about members of staff
Substance abuse
Criminal sexual exploitation CSE
Criminal child exploitation CCE

Safeguarding in Wales

Each nation in the United Kingdom will have slightly different safeguarding laws and legislations. In Wales, the government legislation Keeping Learners Safe, lays out the safeguarding and child protection laws that must be followed by all schools, colleges, governing bodies and local authorities in Wales. The guidance divides into eight sections:

About Safeguarding in Wales
Safeguarding Roles and Responsibilities
Responding to Concerns
Safeguarding in specific circumstances
Domestic abuse, gender-based violence, sexual violence and harmful cultural practices
Keeping Children Safe Online
Community Cohesion
Safer Staff Recruitment Practice

The guidance sets out things that schools and colleges:

Must do because it’s the law; and,
Should do because it’s part of this guidance.

It also gives examples of best practice that all establishments can follow.

How You Can Keep Children and Young People Safe

The main responsibility you have as an educator is to report any safeguarding concerns you have to the designated safeguarding person in your school or college. Each establishment will have its own processes and systems in place to record, report and manage all types of safeguarding concerns.

As an educator, you will often spend more time around children and young people than their parents do. You are well placed to notice all manners of concerns and issues. Early intervention and helping these students rely on your ability to take note of any concerns and report them.

Safeguarding Training

This blog is in no way a substitute for statutory safeguarding training. In Wales, safeguarding training is mandatory for most staff working in with children or young people in an education setting and early years and childcare, as well as other roles in the public and voluntary sectors.