Designated and Senior Safeguarding Lead Training

This course is only suitable for those, who have completed Level 1 and Level 2 safeguarding training, such as an Introduction to Child Protection and Safeguarding Children in Practice.

According to the charity Mind:

• Nearly one in three adults (30%) and over one in three young people (34%) said that their mental health has got much worse during the pandemic.
• Over half of young people (59%) said they will enjoy school, college or university more once restrictions ease. But around one in five (21%) do not think they will enjoy school, college or university without restrictions.
• Young people want more information and education about mental health in school, college, university or work.

Domestic abuse can have a serious implications for children’s development. The Covid pandemic has had a significant impact on the seriousness of incidents of domestic abuse.

In the first 3 weeks of the first lockdown, there had been sixteen domestic abuse killings of women and children in the UK, which was the highest for at least 11 years. We will look at the reasons why and what we can do support young people.

Keeping Children Safe in Education legislation is very specific in the expectations it has for those carrying out the role as the designated safeguarding lead. These include:

• To be a ‘source of support, advice and expertise for all staff’.
• To promote ‘supportive engagement with parents and/or carers’.
• To ‘liaise with the senior mental health lead and, where available, the Mental Health Support team.’
• In promoting ‘educational outcomes’ the DSL is now given ‘lead responsibility for maintaining a culture of high expectations’ among students who need a social worker or who have had them in the past.

We will discuss how effective safeguarding arrangements should look in your setting, so you have the skills and knowledge to support your colleagues and share information with multi agencies.

Extra-familial abuse is linked to ‘contextual safeguarding’ or ‘complex safeguarding’. These concepts refer to harm that occurs to children outside of their family system, often during the adolescent years because at this age their social networks widen. We will explore this in detail, so you can identify the contextual safeguarding risks in your setting.

We will expand our knowledge about child in need and child protection plans. We will discuss the role of professionals in a child protection conference and a subsequent core group and provide you the skills to support a family who require a safeguarding plan.

This course has been created and delivered by Milly Wildish, a child protection specialist who has worked in criminal, education and local authority settings and has worked as a designated safeguarding lead in a large primary school in London. Milly is a national safeguarding panel member and is currently engaged in a large-scale independent investigation, into current and historical allegations of child abuse.

Your understanding of the course is tested though multiple-choice questions and you will receive a CPD accredited certificate, on the successful completion of the course.