Week 27: Safeguarding

Safeguarding (Child Protection)

It's one of the sad facts of our human society that people abuse other people or even themselves. All educators such as ourselves, play an important role in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. It's important that we know our learners and take responsibility for them.

The legislation summary for Kendal College is this:

As part of the session this week, we divided the class in to groups based on Assessment for Learning Mixed Ability Groups. That resulted in at least one peer in each group with good confidence and or experience in safeguarding matters. The results was, it lead to some thorough and in depth discussion, in particular of the main categories of abuse, which can be seen listed in the above image.

The purpose of this blog isn't just to repeat verbatim what the legislation is, but rather to provide a summary of our classroom session and what we learned from it. I'll provide a video or audio summary too of the session.

As a group we discussed the categories of abuse section and each of us contributed to to the discussion with experiences and understanding. We were able to add to our understanding with a concluding discussion with the whole peer group and our tutor Tam. Some important points re as follows:

If Unsure:
It's true to say that evidence on it's own can be difficult to assess. If in doubt, it's better to report to the Safeguarding Team anyway. We are not the professionals in this area, they are. Of course, all Criminal acts must be reported.

Don't Delay:
That means not even waiting to the end of a class or other arrangement. Act immediately!

Be Available:
We mentioned earlier: Know your learners and be available for them. In earlier sessions we learned about Pastoral Care, which demonstrates a concern for the welfare of our students outside of the classroom. Whilst this might mean we become someone they can confide in, this is always done in a professional way.

It becomes clear, as you consider all the legislation that you can connect all the dots between all the various aspects of practice and legislation that affects teaching as a whole. With regard to some other aspects we touched on in discussing Safeguarding we considered that in any discussion with a potential victim of abuse, it's important to Listen, don't ask Leading Questions, seek Clarification especially of Times and Dates and Make Notes of them. Remember to inform them that whilst they might have decided to confide in you, where it might involve Abuse or Criminal acts, you cannot keep secrets of such activity. Make them aware that you would reveal such cases to the relevant authorities.

The subject of Self Abuse was discussed and some of my peer group could relate personal experiences. It was also revealed that, at a medical level, Self Abuse is a recommended course of action to deal with some cases of depression, anxiety etc. Clearly this is a complex topic and not one to be weighed by personal opinion. Thankfully, as is the case at Kendal College, there are those who are trained and expert in this field and I would be quite happy to have such matters handled by the relevant professional/s.

Audio Review: