As part of the Education Act 2002 and the latest Keeping Children Safe in Education,  all schools must have a member of the leadership team as their Designated Safeguarding Lead. This person must take lead responsibility for dealing with child protection issues, referring concerns of significant harm, providing advice and guidance to support all staff to carry out their safeguarding duties, overseeing the school provision of early help and liaising with other agencies as required. This training must be updated every 2 years. This course is delivered by Lesley Pollard who is an experienced teacher, trainer and adviser. She currently works as an Independent Learning Adviser carrying out Safeguarding training and audits for a variety of providers as well as for individual schools.

Objectives

To ensure that the participant can identify:

• What the safeguarding agenda actually means for schools;
• Current legislation which informs the role of the DSL;
• The role and responsibilities of the DSL;
• The importance of early help, signposting, interagency working and interventions to safeguard vulnerable children/young people;
• The categories and possible indicators of the 4 categories of abuse, FGM, Forced Marriage, Grooming, CSE, So Called Honour-Based Violence, Radicalisation and Extremism, Gang Culture, County Lines, Child Criminal Exploitation;
• The most vulnerable pupils including those with SEND, those with family members in prison and those subject to peer-on-peer abuse, domestic violence, homelessness, appearing in Court, parental alcohol and drug abuse and mental health issues;
• The role of the Northamptonshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (NSCP);
• How to seek early help and refer concerns (including the Signs of Safety approach);
• How to keep, transfer and archive Child Protection records.