A useful resource

My regular clients know that I’m always on the lookout for useful resources. I was recently on the Social Care Institute for Excellence website (www.scie.org.uk) and they have worked with NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) to publish an excellent guide about good practice in safeguarding training. Although this is targeted at registered managers of care homes… I could seethe use for  for any client group I worked with I work with.

It talks about the role of the registered manager and different training opportunities for staff, including when eLearning might and might not be suitable.   There is an incredibly helpful section on what should be covered in mandatory training… this focuses on the adult sector but again could so easily be adapted for children -  it also gives examples of further training that could be useful.

If you’ve been on one of my training sessions, you’ll know that one of my key questions is always what are you going to do with this training? I was really pleased to see a section on impact. We can do all the training in the world but if it doesn’t change what we do and impact our practice the time is wasted.

Thinking about the impact of training can be quite straightforward – when I’m on Zoom I ask people to put in the chat one thing they going to do as a result of the training and write in their diary now. Face-to-face I may well ask them to write that on a post-it note and stick the post-it note somewhere it will be found in a week or so.. a useful reminder.   It can be a simple as chatting through with colleagues what you’ve learnt how this can be applied to the situation you’re in… Or it can be by spending time reflecting on the material sometime later.

So I would wholeheartedly recommend this resource to you and suggest anybody with responsibility for arranging safeguarding training has a look at it. It is free to download and can be found at: https://www.scie.org.uk/safeguarding/adults/practice/care-homes/training

As always if I can be of any help please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Updated Safeguarding Guidance

As the new term starts it’s a great opportunity to highlight that Keeping Children Safe in Education has been updated.  The new document can be found here.

This document not only makes ways of working clear, but it is always full of good advice and suggestions.  The NSPCC have published a really useful summary of changes which can be found here.

Based on support I’ve given clients over the last year or so with different issues I have pulled out a few key areas to highlight.

• I’m sure we will all welcome the increased focus on online abuse with support for identifying this and managing it. With the possibility that more learning may move virtual again this winter due to Covid rates rising, this will no doubt be of increasing importance
• Many of my client groups use school premises for their activities and - along with schools - I am sure they will welcome the clarity around safeguarding responsibilities. In practice most people work in the way suggested but it’s useful to have this written down.  Of course, even if you have your own safeguarding policy when you’re using somebody else’s premises you always need to be aware of their safeguarding policies as well as health and safety… and at the moment Covid risk assessments!
• Over the last year I’ve seen  increased demand for my ‘managing allegations’ training, and have enjoyed delivering this to foster carers, social workers  and charities who work with young people and adults at risk. We talk about the legal processes that kick in when an allegation is made against somebody working with children or adults at risk. We think about the difference between an allegation complaint and concern, and the role of the local authority. Having an allegation made against you is very difficult and we talk about how to manage the situation to keep yourself and others in the process safe. With this level of demand for the training I was particularly pleased to see that the revised Keeping Children Safe in Education has a new section which deals with the slightly grey area of what to do when an allegation is made which does not make that meet the threshold for local authority involvement. I know I have recommended before as good practice that note should be kept,  but again it is good to see this written down .

I hope this quick taster would encourage you to have a look at the new publication and think about how the recommendations apply to your practice in whatever capacity you work with children or young people.

As always if I can be of any help please do let me know!

Final reminder: Don’t forget to check whether your safeguarding policy needs updating now!

My Latest Update

I would first of all like to take this opportunity of sending all my clients and contacts, very best wishes as everybody starts to deal with a new way of working. (Note I’m avoiding the phrase "new normal"!)

Most of my work is with people who are caring for others and I am constantly amazed at the innovative ways people are managing to deliver services.  I hope all is going well for you and for your organisation.

Knowing how busy everybody has been, and also waiting to see whether the unlocking of restrictions in April went according to plan, I’ve slightly delayed this, my termly mailing, hoping that by the time you receive and get to read this message, things may be a little more settled for you.

Like most of you, I’ve adapted how I work in the last few months and as a result, I’m finding the virtual training is still very popular … avoiding travel costs and saving time, it has provided the opportunity for people from all over the country to meet and share ideas.  Indeed in the last few months my geographic reach has expanded into the international arena with delegates attending a Safeguarding training from as far afield as Bangladesh, Italy and London.
 
There are just a few items detailed below which may hopefully be of interest to you:

• I am able to offer all of my training topics, with the exception of First Aid, either virtually or face-to-face.  If you’d like to know more about how the virtual option works, or obtain some feedback from previous virtual trainings held, please do not hesitate to contact me.
• Compliance training - you will probably be aware that all extensions to First Aid certificates from the HSE and OFSTED have now expired.  Which, as you can imagine, has seen a massive influx of enquiries received for First Aid training resulting in all courses, until September are now completely fully booked.  However, I still have places available on courses that are to take place on Wednesday, 16 June (one day adult First Aid course face to face) and evenings of Thursday 10 and 24 June and 1 July (Paediatric First Aid – one session virtual and the final two face to face).  All courses are running in the Elland area.    

If you would like to reserve a place on one of these courses, please contact me as soon as possible. 
If you’re in need of courses and these days are inconvenient, please do get in touch as soon as possible. 

• Just a reminder for my clients who work with food, that the Food Safety certificates should be renewed every three years.
• Since January I’ve had three courses certified with the CPD service these are Delivering Virtual Training, The Role of the Safeguarding Practitioner and Introduction to Safer Recruitment.
  If these are of any interest to you and you’d like further details, please get in touch.

Can you help please … ? I have a couple of clients who we would like to send a delegate on the Designated Safeguarding Lead course and with this in mind, I would like to create a small group in the hope of running this course.  Therefore if you have anybody in your organisation who has the need or would like to attend this training, or who may be interested in this role in the future please let me know.   This would be a virtual course and could be held in the daytime or evening depending on the clients’ needs.   

Finally, as many of my clients are busy catching up with their training competencies, needs and requirements, I’m finding that a lot of dates are becoming reserved very quickly.  

Bearing in mind that hopefully most people will enjoy some form of Summer holiday this year, we are now looking at September time onwards for future bookings, therefore if you have a specific date and training needs in mind, please feel free to get in touch as I would love to talk through your requirements with you.

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