Source: Department for Education published on this website Thursday 15 March 2025 by Jil Powell

This new non statutory guidance Protective security and preparedness for education settings was published on the 29 April.

 This non-statutory guidance is for:

• security and incident leads
• all staff, including non-teaching staff

It applies to:

• all education settings and childcare providers
• all organisations and agencies that have functions relating to learners

The guidance:

• aims to improve security awareness
• helps staff and learners identify security vulnerabilities and suspicious activities
• sets out practical, low-costs steps to improve preparedness and response plans

The Act for Education interactive e-learning resource will teach learners:

• how to identify security vulnerabilities and suspicious activity
• how to respond when there is an incident

The Summary states:

“This non-statutory guidance provides advice to help educational settings be better prepared and able to respond to terrorism and other major incidents. It sets out practical steps to keep learners, staff and volunteers safe in the event of an incident through simple and cost-effective methods. The guidance is aimed at those working in settings who have existing responsibilities for emergency planning and response, site security, and staff new to concepts of protective security and preparedness. It is recommended that all staff read this guidance to ensure they are able to identify security vulnerabilities, suspicious activity and how to respond when there is an incident. For the purpose of this guidance, educational settings cover settings from early years, all schools, further and higher education (including colleges, sixth-form colleges and independent training providers), and alternative provisions (including special schools and children’s social care settings). This guidance can also be adapted to out-of-school settings (OOSS)”.

Key Actions for Schools: (summarised by Claire Stewart safecic’s Development Manager)

• Appoint a Security Lead to oversee emergency planning and act as incident lead if needed.
• Review and test plans for lockdown, invacuation, evacuation, and bomb threats, ensuring they meet the needs of all learners, including those with SEND.
• Train all staff to recognise suspicious behaviour (SCaN), assess suspicious items (HOT protocol), and respond to incidents (RUN HIDE TELL).
• Use the self-assessment tool (Annex D) to review current plans and identify gaps.
• Prepare a ‘grab kit’ with essential items to support response efforts, especially for those with additional needs.

This guidance has been developed in collaboration with the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) and sector partners.

Source: Northumbria Police published on this website Tuesday 13 May 2025 by Jill Powell

A care home manager in the North East who physically and sexually abused residents has been jailed for three years and three months.

Concerns were first raised around William Malcolm’s inappropriate and unprofessional conduct in 2022 and then began a complex and long-running investigation.

Malcolm, 61, who was also a registered mental health nurse, was caring for vulnerable and elderly residents in the home.

His treatment of both people in his care and non-residents started to alarm employees who say they witnessed a range of disturbing events.

Witnesses say they saw Malcolm use hateful names towards people, swear at them, simulate sex with them and, in some cases, sexually assault them.

After being arrested, Malcolm was charged with a string of offences in November 2023.

Malcolm, of West Hope Close, South Tyneside, denied all the charges.

Last month, a jury at Newcastle Crown Court unanimously found him guilty of 13 offences – 10 charges of sexual assault, two of ill-treating a person in care and one racially aggravated harassment.

He was sentenced to three years and three months’ imprisonment.

Malcolm will also spend the rest of his life on the Sex Offenders’ Register and was given a string of supplementary orders to further protect the public, including multiple restraining orders.

The officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Clark Graham, said: “William Malcolm was duty bound to protect vulnerable people but instead he abused his position.

“That abuse has had long-term destructive effects on his victims and their families – who have only wanted the best and most compassionate care for their loved ones.

“Malcolm’s disgusting acts, including abusing those who can’t always speak up or defend themselves, have rightly earned him a place behind bars.

“While nothing will ever fully undo the pain and suffering this has caused, I hope this acts as a comfort knowing he has been brought to justice.”

Det Sgt Graham continued: “I want to praise all the witnesses who came forward to help with this investigation.

“It’s clear he was a cruel and abusive nurse and the bravery to come forward against someone like that should be commended.”

Source: Ministry of Justice published on this website Wednesday 14 May 2025

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, new measures in the Crime and Policing Bill will protect vulnerable people who are encouraged or assisted to self-harm.

• New laws to protect vulnerable people at risk of self-harm
• Those who provide the tools for self-harm face up to 5 years behind bars, helping to cut crime and deliver the government’s plan for change
• Perpetrators face prosecution even if no self-harm takes place

Vulnerable people who are encouraged or assisted to harm themselves will have greater protection under a new offence being introduced as part of the Crime and Policing Bill. 

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, the government is pushing ahead with vital new measures to further protect those at risk – with recent NHS data showing self-harm hospital admissions among young people have soared by a third. 

The government is going further to strengthen safeguards - broadening the law to capture more malicious behaviour, bringing parity between the online and offline world and protect people who are at risk of suicide or self-harm.

The new laws will make it a criminal offence to directly assist someone to self-harm - such as giving someone a blade or sending them pills – whether it is done in person or online. This will build on existing laws that already prevent people encouraging or assisting suicide or self-harm through content online.  

Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), Alex Davies-Jones, said  

The prevalence of serious self-harm, especially in young people, is hugely concerning. It is an awful truth that some people encourage or assist such behaviour, and one I wanted to draw attention to during Mental Health Awareness Week. 

Whether encouragement is by communication, or more directly by assistance, the outcome is the same. We are determined that anybody intending to see others harm themselves is stopped and dealt with in the strongest way.

Under this broader offence, someone can also be prosecuted if their intention is to cause serious self-harm even when this does not result in injuries to the vulnerable person. Those found guilty face up to 5 years in prison.  

Self-harm can occur at any age. A recent study on people aged 13 to 15 reported that prevalence was greater among girls (22.7%) than boys (8.5%).  

There is also increasing evidence of links between internet usage and self-harm, with one study finding that, among self-harm hospital presentations, the prevalence of suicide and self-harm related internet use was 26% among children and adolescents.    

Anybody struggling with self-harm or suicidal thoughts is urged to get in touch with their GP or get advice and emotional support from organisations such as the Samaritans, Mind, or SANEline. 

Background information

• To avoid criminalising vulnerable people who share their experiences of self-harm publicly, if a person does not intend to encourage or assist serious self-harm then they will not be prosecuted as they did not mean to cause any harm to others. This enables the issue to continue to be discussed openly, for awareness and therapeutic purposes, without fear of repercussion.  
• Mental Health Awareness Week runs from 12 to 18 May 2025 
• The Online Safety Act 2023 gave partial effect to the Law Commission recommendation to create an offence, modelled on the offence of encouraging and assisting suicide, to tackle the encouragement of self-harm. It did so by introducing a new offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm by means of verbal or electronic communications, publications or correspondence  
• The Crime and Policing Bill will repeal the existing offence and replace it with a broader offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm to cover all means by which serious self-harm broader may be encouraged or assisted, including by any means of communication and in any other way 
• The offence contains two key elements to ensure that the offence does not disproportionately impact vulnerable people who harm themselves and constrains the offence to only the most culpable offending. These are (1) that the defendant’s act must be intended to encourage or assisting the serious self-harm of another person; and (2) that the defendant’s act is capable of encouraging or assisting the serious self-harm of another person. The offence therefore targets those who intend by their act to cause another person to seriously self-harm Sharing experiences of self-harm, or simply discussing the issue, without such intention will not be a criminal offence 
• For more information on hospital admission breakdown data visit: Hospital admissions related to self harm, with age and geographical breakdowns - NHS England Digital

Source: Department for Education published on this website Monday 12 May 2025 by Jill Powell

 The updated version has an illustrated guide, an animated video and details of a toolkit for children, young people and their families, and practitioners working with them.

This is so practitioners can share and use with children, young people and their families:

• Working together to safeguard children: an illustrated guide for children, young people and their families
• the short accompanying animated video
• a toolkit of resources

All children should be helped, supported and protected when things are difficult. The illustrated guide, animated video and toolkit explain to children, young people and their families how individuals, organisations and agencies work together to help, support and protect them.

These materials were co-produced with children and young people, along with the Department for Education’s Social Care Advisory Board, facilitated by the National Children’s Bureau.

Practitioners who would like to use the toolkit can email workingtogether.statutoryguidance@education.gov.uk to request this.