Source: Department for Education published on this website Tuesday 2 April 2024 by Jill Powell

Safeguarding is one of the most important responsibilities that schools and colleges have, The Department for Education knows how seriously teachers, designated safeguarding leads, support staff, and school and college leadership take that responsibility.Safeguarding is never static. As new safeguarding threats emerge, we all need to consider how we can best respond to those threats and what solutions can be put in place to address them. This call for evidence is therefore deliberately broad and seeks to reflect areas and issues that have been shared by school and college safeguarding professionals, or where wider systemic changes mean we have an opportunity to better align school and college safeguarding policy, including the findings of Ofsted's ‘Big Listen.’

Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) is designed to help schools and colleges identify concerns early, develop the right relationships with other professionals, and support them to put appropriate processes and procedures in place. Ministers have decided that KCSIE 2024 will undergo technical changes only before final publication in September 2024, with a view to providing a more substantively updated document, encompassing wider changes, to be delivered in 2025

The Department for Education are launching this 12-week call for evidence now, to take the views of schools, colleges, and other professionals on safeguarding practice development and direction, in advance of Keeping children safe in education 2025 (KCSIE). Your reflections, experience, and suggestions in this call for evidence will help us to inform future iterations of KCSIE and shape our long-term policies to support staff to keep children safe in education. For this reason – whilst we will not be publishing the results of this call for evidence, we will consult on any substantive changes we make to future iterations of KCSIE, and school and college safeguarding policy, following this exercise, in the normal way.

 To undertake the Survey

Source: Safer Internet Centre published on this site Wednesday 27 March 2024 BY Jill Powell

The Professionals Online Safety Helpline has released new guidance to support schools with online reputation concerns.

The latest guidance has been published after new data from the Professionals Online Safety Helpline revealed that 46% of contacts to the helpline involved concerns around online reputational issues.

Download Guidance

The newly published guidance issued by the Professionals Online Safety Helpline intends to support school leaders, governors, federations, and trust leaders within schools in England. The guidance helps schools navigate online reputational issues and better understand what resources they have available to help manage these situations. The guidance includes information on:

• Responding to online posts
• Online reputational issues that can be successfully reported
• Other routes to resolution

Support available

The guidance considers multiple situations involving reputational concerns, including dealing with negative online reviews, online community groups and how to address concerns around images published outside of the school. Educators can also find information about reporting trademark violations and accounts involving impersonation attempts.

Further Information

Alongside the latest guidance, the Professionals Online Safety Helpline provides a series of resources to support educators or professionals working with young people. Recent resources include support around sexual harassment, making reports to social media platforms, how to handle impersonation attempts, and what to do following an incident of sexting. These can be found from the SWGfL website, who operate the helpline as part of the UK Safer Internet Centre.

Alongside this, any professional working with young people can get support with their online safety concerns by contacting the Professionals Online Safety Helpline. The helpline can be contacted by emailing  helpline@saferinternet.org.uk or by calling 0344 381 4772.

Source: Derby and Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Partnership published on this website Thursday 28 March 2024 by Jill Powell

This Local Safeguarding Practice Review was undertaken in response to the death of Theo on Christmas Day 2022. He had suffered 130 injuries before his death inflicted by his parents who are now in jail for his murder.

The injuries and subsequent death of the baby happened during the Covid 19 pandemic. The review describes opportunities were missed and lessons from many previous reviews were not learned.

A summary of progress report has also been published by the Derby and Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Partnership has also been published.

Source: Isle of Man Government published on this website Tuesday 26 March 2024 by Jill Powell

The new Sexual Offences and Obscene Publications Act will modernise existing legislation, increase maximum penalties and strengthen sentencing powers for offences against children.

The Act, which comes into effect today, will introduce crimes like voyeurism, revenge porn and ‘upskirting’ into Manx law, reflecting changes in technology that have led to new types of offending.

This follows Tynwald approving the regulations and order which are required by the new law.

In addition to the new offences, the Act will outlaw conversion therapy, update child abuse and child exploitation offences, and revise court anonymity rules. Sexual Harm Prevention Orders and Sexual Risk Orders will also be introduced, which will allow controls such as curfews and exclusions to be placed on those who pose a sexual risk to others even before a conviction or guilty plea. The Act also contains more stringent notification requirements for convicted sex offenders.

The full Sexual Offences and Obscene Publications Act 2021 is available online.

Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, Jane Poole-Wilson MHK, said:

‘The modernisation and strengthening of these laws is a significant step towards making our communities safer, and making sure that we are dealing with these awful crimes in an appropriate and robust way. The Act will enable our Courts to give stronger punishments, and give the police more flexible powers to keep victims and the public safe from these harms.  I am very grateful to all those who have been involved in the journey of this Act and, in particular, the significant amount of preparation ahead of go-live on 25 March.’

Anyone who believes they have been the victim of a crime outlined in the new Act should contact Douglas Police Headquarters on 631212 or 999 in an emergency.

There has been an extensive training programme across Government and the Police to ensure all parts of the organisation are ready to deal with the new law.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this release, there are details available of local organisations that provide advice on our wellbeing support webpage.