Unit 202 Safeguarding The Welfare Of Children And Young People

Unit 202 – Safeguarding the Welfare of Children and Young People

Outcome 1 Know about the legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding the welfare of children and young people including e-safety
1.1– There are legislations, guidelines, policies and procedures which cover the safeguarding and welfare of the young people within the setting I am working in. Examples of these include the Health and Safety policy, the Safeguarding/Child Protection policy and the Equal Opportunities policy. Please see the table located at the front of my folder, for summaries of these.
On my first week of work, I was given a talk and shown a presentation based on the E-Safety policy. This presentation is rolled out across the school and shown during year group assemblies. Watching the presentation, I learnt about the measures that were in place at the school to ensure the protection of students and employees. Every computer in the school has a programme called “Securus” installed on it. Securus monitors the activity that occurs on each machine, ensuring that the content searched for is suitable for the age of the learners within our school. It also has a word filter, which means that if a student was to send an abusive email containing nasty, negative words, Securus would flag it up. A technician would be able to find out the perpetrator of the abuse and also the victim, to ensure the situation was resolved and the students were dealt with appropriately. Acklam Grange has a separate policy on “Social Networking” for staff members. Every employee has to read and sign the policy, which states aims such as “reinforcing the need to use social networking sites safely” and “safeguarding staff in connection with the inappropriate use of social networking sites”. It outlines that staff should not have any pupil added to their personal accounts, nor should they post information on these accounts relating to the workplace.
1.2– There are numerous different agencies that are involved in safeguarding the welfare of children and young people. These include:
CAFCASS
CAFCASS are an agency that put children and families first in the family courts. Every year they held up to 145,000 children and young people who are going though adoption or care proceedings, or whose parents have separated and are unable to agree on arrangements concerning the future of their child. CAFCASS provides a voice for children in the family courts and helps to ensure that their welfare is put first during all proceedings. CAFCASS is asked to become involved in court cases once an application has been made. Their experienced practitioners provide judges with advice, recommendations and the information they need to make a safe decision about a child’s future. This includes working with children to find out their wishes and feelings and reporting these findings back to the court. They do not take sides between parents and always remain independent for the children involved.

Health Visitors
Health visitors provide support and educate families from pregnancy through to a child’s fifth birthday. Common tasks they carry out include offering parenting advice on family health and minor illnesses, visiting new born babies to give mothers’ advice on feeding, weaning and dental health, physical and mental checks on children and parents alike to ensure that subjects such as post-natal depression are addressed. Health visitors also work closely with other professionals such as nursery nurses and Sure Start children’s centre workers to retain an overview of the health and well-being of children and families within their concentrated area. Health visitors work in a variety of settings including family homes, clinics, GP surgeries and children’s Sure Start centres.

Inclusion Support Workers
Inclusion Support Workers work one to one with children who have special educational needs. They follow the requirement of the SEN codes of practise with regards to Early Years. Their role includes helping relationships by encouraging interaction between the child and other pupils, interpreting the child’s attempt to communicate, encouraging independent interaction, explaining work and adapting it where necessary and helping to set objectives for individual learning plans. Inclusion Workers liaise with children’s teachers and parents so that every body is aware of where the child is up to developmentally and what their targets are. This ensures that the child is fully supported and is able to thrive.

Outcome 2 Know what to do when children or young people are ill or injured, including emergency procedures
2.1, 2.2, 2.3– See table.
2.4– I am now going to give examples of scenarios and describe the actions that should be taken in response to emergency situations.
a) Fires
At Acklam Grange School, a senior member of staff called Mr Jones is the Fire Officer. In the event of a fire, it would be his responsibility to ensure that the fire procedure was carried out responsibly and that all of the children and staff evacuated the building safely. Every classroom has a map of the assembly points, should a fire occur. These are located by the exit door of the room. They are simple and easy to understand and also glow in the dark, in case the fire is caused by or has affected the electrics. The fire exists are free from obstructions at all times, this is monitored by every member of staff within the building. The map also displays where the nearest fire extinguisher can be found. The extinguishers are labelled clearly with instructions of their use. A basic outline of the procedure is as follows:
1. Fire bell sounds, immediately sending an alert to the fire brigade
2. Everyone in the building must locate the nearest fire exit and make their way out of the building via this
3. Children will line up in form groups
4. The form teacher will carry out a register to ensure that all pupils are present
5. Staff members who do not have a form must group together in their faculties, e.g. IT, Modern Foreign Languages, Mathematics teachers
6. The Fire Officer will do a headcount of the staff to ensure that they are all present
7. The fire service will arrive and deal with the incident
8. The incident must be logged once everything is dealt with.
Fire drills are carried out every half term so that all staff and children are well practised in implementing the policy.

b) Security Incidents
To ensure the minimization of security incidents, there are a number of measures in place. For example, a member of the public cannot gain entrance into the school unless they are buzzed in by a member of main office staff. If you do have not made an appointment to visit, or are not related to any pupil in the school, your access will be denied. Visitors who are expected are asked to sign in and a visitor badge will be printed for them, which should be displayed clearly on their persons. The whole site is fenced off by iron railings which are very secure. This means that people who have not been granted access through the main doors of the school, will not be able to enter the yard. If, by chance, an unauthorised person was spotted on site, they would be escorted off site discreetly. If they were reluctant to leave, the police would be called immediately and they would deal with the intruder.

c) Missing children or young people
The risk of a child going missing during a school outing is relatively high. Measures are put in place to reduce this risk. Once, when I worked in a nursery setting, we took the children on an outing to a theatre in Stockton. Before we even left the class room the children sat down on the carpet calmly to listen to their teacher, who told them exactly how they must behave during the outing. The children were all given a high visibility waistcoat to wear so they were easy to spot when in a crowded public place. The children were buddied up into pairs and were given a designated teacher to hold hands with. Ratios were strictly maintained to ensure that no member of staff had more than two children each. Everybody walked sensibly to the coach that was parked directly outside the nursery doors. Once the everyone was on board and had their seatbelts on, a register was taken to ensure that no body was left behind. Once the Room Leader was confident of this, we set off to the theatre. The register was taken again when we reached our destination. The pairs stayed with their designated teacher even when sat in the theatre. After the performance, the children and staff boarded the bus again and performed another headcount. Everybody got back to nursery safely.
In the unlikely instance that a child had gone missing, the Missing Child (Outings) policy would be followed. First, a search of the immediate area would be carried out. If the child wasn’t found in this area, the nursery manager would need to be contacted immediately. The manager will then phone the child’s parent who will make their way to either the nursery or the venue of the outing, as agreed. All staff and children on the outing should make their way back to the nursery. The investigation procedure will follow and will be that of the Missing Child policy. Nursery drivers would drive back to the venue of the outing to carry out a more thorough search, communicating via mobile phone or walkie talkie. A statement must be made by all of the staff who were on the outing, stating the last known whereabouts of the child and the time they were seen there. A conclusion will be decided on how the security breech happened. If the incident warrants a police investigation if the child is not found, all staff will co-operate fully and disclose as much information as possible.

Outcome 3 Know how to respond to evidence or concerns that a child or young person has been abused, harmed or bullied
3.1– See photocopy of Safeguarding Training certificate.
3.2– There are a number of risks and possible consequences for children and young people whilst they are using the internet, mobile phones and other technologies. These are as follows:
Internet
The internet must be used responsibly, or there can be very serious consequences. An example of these consequences was displayed in the news recently. A teenager’s parents had gone away on holiday so they had arranged to have a small party round their house. They only invited their closest friends but advertised the event to them via Facebook. The Facebook event was seen by everybody on that teenager’s friends list and over six hundred revellers gate crashed the family home. This was a warning that privacy settings are very important and should be implemented. The teenager should have sent private inbox messages to the select people he wanted to invite, instead of displaying it for everyone to see. Mistakes like this can be made on other social networking sites such as Myspace and Bebo. Users should be vigilant and display limited amounts of private information on there.

Mobile phones
Mobile phones can be the catalyst for cases of cyber bullying. In extreme cases, it has lead young people to take their own lives. Problems involving mobile phones can include silent phone calls, insulting or threatening texts, abusive verbal messages and stolen identity. Cyberstalking is frightening and illegal and the perpetrators are not as anonymous as they may first think they are, as their details can be tracked down. Young children must be careful when handing out their mobile phone number, giving it only to people who they trust will not share it with others. If there are a series of calls or the calls are part of a bigger picture of bullying then this may amount to harassment which is an offence under the 1997 Harassment Act. Making anonymous or abusive phone calls is also a criminal offence under section 43 of the Telecommunications Act 1984.

Other Technologies – X Box
X Boxes now have internet facilities. The X Box Live site actively encourages gamers to purchase the latest games and software updates. This will be very appealing to children and young people and they may enter personal credit or debit card details onto a web page or site that is not legitimate. This could result in cases of identity theft, as well as fraud. The company or person who gets hold of those card details could use them to make purchases. This is illegal, as well as very worrying for the victim. Parents should be responsible by storing their cards and money away from their children. The child should be aware that if they want to buy something, they need to seek parental consent first. If the website is unfamiliar or unheard of to the parent, they should not put confidence in it and should definitely not part with any of their details.
3.3– There are certain actions that must be taken in response to evidence or concerns that a child or young person has come into harm. If I suspected that a child was being abused or harmed, whether this harm is self inflicted or not, it would be my duty of care to report it. I would go to the child’s head of year. The head of year would then investigate further and may decide to involve other professions such as school councillors and welfare officers. If the harm posed a serious risk to the pupil, their parents would be contacted. All staff must act responsibly to ensure the welfare of every young person. Concerns about bullying cross references with Unit 302, learning outcome 5, assessment criteria 5.2 (B). As previously mentioned, it is vital that staff do not make promises to children if any information is disclosed and that they must remember that it is not their responsibility to make conclusions; they must only report what they have seen or heard.
3.4– It is important that the relevant actions are taken in response to concerns about a collegue.
a) Staff failing to comply with safeguarding policies
If there was an instance where a colleague failed to comply with safeguarding policies it would be my duty to report it. I would follow the school’s Whistle Blowing policy. An example of when this would need to come into play would be if I witnessed a staff member breeching a child’s confidentiality. For the sake of a scenario, perhaps I could be in the staff room at lunch time and a member of staff is on the phone to their friend. They begin to discuss a child they had been teaching last lesson, expressing how fed up of them they were because the child had dyslexia and couldn’t keep up with the work. I would need to be discrete about reporting what I had heard, as the member of staff has a right to confidentiality themselves. As an apprentice, I would approach my mentor. They would then ask me to write a witness statement. My mentor would take this information and investigate it, to see if there were any other witnesses etc. If there was enough evidence to prove that the allegation was true, the member of staff could face being suspended or even fired. It is vital that the safeguarding of students is paramount.

b) The same policy (Whistle Blowing) would come into effect if I had concerns that a child had been harming, abusing or bullying a child or young person. I will summarise the policy.
Acklam Grange School has adopted this policy to enable concerned employees to raise issues without fear of reprisals. The school does not want issues to be ignored and wants employees to feel comfortable in coming forward. The policy incorporates the provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Where there is an issue raised under the Whistle Blowing policy, the school will investigate it swiftly and thoroughly and will take appropriate steps to remedy any wrong doing. Employees are expected to report malpractice and wrong doing and may be liable to disciplinary action if they knowingly and deliberately do not disclose information. The following are examples of issues which could be raised under this policy: failure to implement policies, corruption or fraud, actions which are likely to cause physical danger to any person or give risk of significant damage to property, abuse of clients/students or any unethical conduct.
3.5– This assessment criteria cross references with the table which is located in the front of my folder. A summary of the Confidentiality policy can be found there. There are certain boundaries of confidentiality and when to share information. This is covered by the Data Protection Act 1998. A summary of this policy is included in Unit 302, Outcome 4, assessment criteria 4.2.