Child Protection & Safeguarding

We seek to support families under our Early Help umbrella, referring and signposting families to support and completing applications (EARLY HELP ASSESSMENT FORM) in this respect within the local authority. We action support at the earliest opportunity through a variety of avenues to be able to fully support our children and families.

Safeguarding is reported termly to Governors via a formal report. Safeguarding procedures are under contact review. Please find the latest Child Protection and Safeguarding policy here.

Early Help means providing help for children, young people and families as soon as problems start to emerge or where it is likely that issues will impact negatively on children’s outcomes.

Early help…

• Is for children of all ages and not just the very young,
• Can be provided at any point of need and;
• Can be very effective in supporting a child, young person and/or their family to step down from statutory services as well as preventing the escalation of issues.
• Is important because there is clear evidence that it results in better outcomes for children.

Early help is a term that describes much of the everyday work of schools.

Most families, most of the time, can get on with their lives quite happily with little or no outside help. If they need help it is usually provided by universal services, such as schools, doctors, dentists etc. This can include the day-to-day support provided to pupils and their families by staff within school.

All families can have times, however, when difficulties arise and they either may not recognise it or may not know how to start putting things right. Without the right support early on, situations can easily get worse very quickly. School plays an important role in supporting families to address these difficulties through more focused pastoral support, which might include bringing in support via an external agency.  At St John’s Stonefold our pastoral support is led by Mr Burns and Mr Martin.  Mr Martin also supports families through his work as SENDCO and through liaison with the Lancashire Early Help Service.

For those children and families whose needs and circumstances make them more vulnerable, or where school needs the support of other agencies to meet the needs of the family, a coordinated multi-agency approach is usually best. In Lancashire, this is achieved through undertaking an Early Help Assessment called a Story So Far and assigning a Lead Practitioner to work closely with the family to ensure they receive the support they require.  School will be a key partner in any multi-agency work to support families.

The following four commitments have been agreed as non-negotiable elements to the St John’s Stonefold Early Help Offer.

By signing up to and implementing these commitments St John’s can ensure:

• Pupils, parent/carers and staff are clear on the Early Help support available through the school
• Clarity for partners, supporting improved multi-agency working
• It is up-to-date with local approaches to the delivery of early help support for more vulnerable families
• Helps evidence school’s commitment to the personal development and wellbeing strand of the Ofsted Framework

Private fostering is when a child under the age of 16 (under 18 if the young person is disabled) is cared for by someone who is not their parent or a close relative. For this purpose, ‘close relatives’ are defined as grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles or aunts.

People can be private fostering for many different reasons, such as:

• a young person has fallen out with their own family, and lives with a family friend.
• they are a host family for an overseas student at a nearby private school.
• a person’s partner has gone away for some reason, and left their birth child with you.

If you – or someone you know – are in a similar situation, and have a young person living with you who is not a close relative, by law, you need to make your local authority aware.

At St John’s Stonefold CE Primary School we are working in partnership with the local Police and Children’s Services to identify and provide appropriate support to pupils who have experienced domestic violence in their household; this scheme is called Operation Encompass.  The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in or witness to a domestic abuse incident.

Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent.

Operation Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the police and schools. The aim of sharing information with local schools is to allow ‘key adults’, such as the Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and Class Teacher or named Support Staff, the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment.

In order to achieve this, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Team will share police information of all domestic incidents where one of our pupils has been present, with the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) (DSL).

On receipt of any information, the DSL will decide on the appropriate support the child requires. We will record this information and store this information in line with our Safeguarding Policy.