pe

Assessment 3 safety and well being Contents: Page 1 – Contents What safeguarding is. Page 2 – Different types of concerns. Empowering children. Unconditional acceptance. Page 3 – Building self-confidence. Assertiveness. Being aware of different procedures. The education act. Page 4 – Equality act. The special education needs and disability act. Reporting abuse and the procedures. Whistle blowing Page 5 – Ensuring a safe environment to learn. Disclosure procedure. Page 6 – Being transparent. Following training guidelines. Knowing procedures and policies. Page 7 – Professional boundaries. Reporting concerns. Lone Woking. Page 8 – Signs of abuse. Safe guarding – The Care Act statutory guidance defines adult safeguarding as: ‘Protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect. It is about people and organisations working together to prevent and stop both the risks and experience of abuse or neglect, while at the same time making sure that the adult’s wellbeing is promoted including, where appropriate, having regard to their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs in deciding on any action. This must recognise that adults sometimes have complex interpersonal relationships and may be ambivalent, unclear or unrealistic about their personal circumstances.’ My own definition – I think it is a procedure that is put in place for the protection both for adults and children from any type of abuse or neglect. Different types of concerns – Abuse – it’s when someone causes people harm or some kind of distress. It can take many forms, ranging from disrespect to causing someone physical or mental pain. It can take place in someone’s home, a care home, hospital or any public areas. Bullying – this is when someone is being hurt either by words or actions on purpose, usually more than once, feels bad because of it, and has a hard time stopping it. Over one million people are affected by bullying each year. Neglect – Neglect is a form of abuse and is a lack in meeting either your own needs or someone else’s, including the failure to provide adequate health care, supervision, clothing, nutrition, housing as well as physical, emotional, social, educational and safety needs. Cyber bullying – Cyberbullying or cyber harassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyber harassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers. Cyberbullying is when someone (mainly teens) bully or harass others on social media sites. Physical abuse – it’s any intentional act causing injury or trauma to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. In most cases, children are the victims of physical abuse, but adults can also be victims, as in cases of domestic violence or workplace aggression. Empowering children – it’s all about giving them information that is reliable, respecting their views, recognising each child and young person as an individual, that they might be exposed to damaging ideas and negative experiences and that this might influence their behaviour and their own ideas as well as someone else’s. Unconditional acceptance – unconditional acceptance of a child means that people involved in the child’s or adults live should not only treat them with care with full acceptance and respect but everyone. This means not looking at what the person is going through and treating them less favourable. Building self-confidence – Teachers and parents have a duty to ensure that children and young adults have the building blocks that are needed for the real world. Throughout education a teacher needs to ensure that they are providing settings that children and young adults can increase their self esteem, assertiveness, self confidence and reliance. Assertiveness – Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive. In psychology, it is a learnable skill and mode of communication. This is necessary whilst around children because they will look up to adults regardless but if a person is assertive, the child is more likely to listen to them due to how they portray themselves with confidence and reassurance. Being aware of procedures – Accidents – help should always be called immediately; you should remain calm and find out as much information as possible so you can pass that information on t5o the emergency services if it’s a very serious accident. Immediate actions are reassuring the child, not moving the child unless necessary, provide no food or drink, keep them warm and check and aim to avoid further risk. Asthma is one of the most common conditions in schools, it affects the lungs and some symptoms are wheezing and coughing. The parent or teacher should be aware of where the child’s adequate inhaler is and if it doesn’t help during an asthma attack help should be called. Injury – Most children will accidently suffer with minor cuts and bruises which can be dealt with within school by cleaning the area with water. Lotion shouldn’t be applied. Illness – When children have common illness in school different things tend to be done depending on the type of illness or the severity, for example if a child has a mild cold, they could attend school as usual but if the child has a severe headache, stomach ache or is sick, the child may step out of class (parents will also be called) and be taken to the nurse and wait for his or her parents to pick the child up from school and they should remain at home until they feel better and ensure the illness has passed. The education act – It was made in 2011 and it puts in order a duty (which staff must follow and obey) on school governing bodies in England as well as Wales in order to be able to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children and young people in their care. All state schools have to have a policy behaviour in place that contains certain measures to help prevent all types and sorts of bullying among students and young people. The policy is decided by the school itself but of course staff, parents and the students themselves must be informed of all the policies as it mainly involves them. The equality act – The equality act was set in 2010 (almost 10 years ago). Places a duty on all school staff in England, Wales and Scotland to prevent discrimination, harassment and victimisation within the school as it protects people legally from discrimination in a workplace, schools, colleges and basically public places. It improved because It replaced some of the previous anti-discrimination laws with one single Act which massively made the law easier to understand and strengthened the quality of protection in some situations. The special educational needs and disability act – The special educational needs and disability act was put in place in 2001. It puts in place several legal rights for disabled students younger or older than sixteen years of age. The Act makes sure that disabled students are not discriminated against in education, training or in any services provided which the majority of the times are for students. This can include courses provided by further and higher education schools and sixth form colleges. It is simply unlawful to treat a student differently or less favourably for simply having a disability. If a person is at a disadvantage as a result of the way in which a school provides its education facilities and services, responsible bodies are must take action to create reasonable steps to prevent any possible kind of disadvantage. Some examples are delivering classes in certain ways suitable for everyone, changing work placements or course requirements to suit the person adequately, changing practices or policies and so on. Reporting abuse – The procedures that a teacher should go through include being able to listen carefully without seeming like you are interrupting, interrogating or investigating the young person. The person should be reassured and be made aware of that the conversation or issues won’t be discussed with anyone implicated in the abuse in order to avoid further abuse. Explaining the next step is also important in order to make the person seeking help the support that they need. Any one that has any relevant information should ideally record it because records should always be made when there is any type of serious concern however only facts should be made note of as well as exactly what was said and what is concerning, as there is no point in recording irrelevant details. In every single case, steps should be taken to make one hundred percent sure that confidentiality is kept for everyone involved, and that information is shared on a need-to-know basis only such as with the safe guarding team, the police and so on but here Confidentiality may not be maintained because withholding further information may prejudice the welfare of a young person or a vulnerable adult in that moment in time. Whistle blowing – Whistleblowing is when a worker or member of staff for some reason reports a suspected wrongdoing at work because he or she may not feel like what they have seen or heard of is correct or appro. Officially it is called ‘making a disclosure in the public interest’. A worker has the rights to report things that do not seem right, are illegal or if anyone at work is neglecting or not doing all of their duties correctly. Ensuring safe environment to learn – To ensure a safe environment to learn there must be five things put in place which include the bullying policy, the safeguarding policy, empowering children, building self-confidence and esteem and finally the behaviour policy. Bullying policy – Here schools have to have good measures to encourage and motivate good behaviour and prevent most if not all forms of bullying within the school and amongst pupils. Some schools choose to include this information in an anti-bullying policy, whilst others include such things in their behaviour policy. The safeguarding policy – A safeguarding or child protection policy aims to makes it as clear as possible and make everyone aware of what the organisation, group or school will do to keep the children within it safe and secure. It should demonstrate the certain organisation’s commitment to protect all children. Empowering children – Empowerment is an extremely important factor in building resilience, which gives children the ability to bounce back and recover from whatever life throws their way not only within school. It greatly promotes self-respect, which is not only very important in today’s society, but it also enables children to have better respect of things overall and It also teaches them to value others. Building self-confidence and esteem – This can be done by a teacher setting several different tasks in lessons and rewarding those who do it successfully and then help those who didn’t work through the problem and then reward them too as it will motivate them to continue to work hard and give them confidence and a self-esteem boost as they are made aware that they are smart enough to solve a series of problems. Behaviour policy – A college or school’s behaviour policy is made to support the way in which all members of the school including pupils and staff can work together in a supportive and effective way. It works towards promoting an environment where everyone feels happy, safe and secure in the public place. Disclosure procedure DBS/CRB The disclosure and barring services was put in place in year 2012 and does things and functions that have previously been undertaken by the criminal records bureau. They are particularly responsible for processing requests, and issuing requests, DBS checks for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and finally the Isle of Man. Making god quality decisions when it comes to whether or not a person should be put in jail for engaging in illegal activities with children, adults or both, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their disclosure team carries out detailed criminal record checks that make and result in DBS certificates being issued to a certain individual that has committed a previous offence. Employers can then ask to see this particular certificate to make sure that they are recruiting suitable people into their organisation whatever it may be, and if employers notice certain things on it they have the right to turn you down and give the job to a more suitable person that has trialled for the job. A basic disclosure is quite simply a criminal record check as I have previously mentioned. You get a certificate showing any possible criminal convictions that you may have and under the Rehabilitation of the Offenders Actin 1974, some criminal convictions can be treated and names as ‘spent’ which means that they’re not relevant to the basic disclosure after a specific and particular length of time. Being transparent – When a person or for example a teacher is being transparent, they are aiming and attempting to invite trust in from people, in particular of those who are going through any type of abuse. When a person is being transparent it also means that they don’t have much if anything to hide which therefore means that he or she is a very credible person and an honest person in the eyes of everyone around them. However, being transparent may also be a bad thing when it comes to certain things, because it can leave a person or teacher vulnerable. With social media, a person will have to think twice before posting something as they do not know who might see it (such as employers or students in this case). If you have nothing inappropriate or illegal to hide, then evidently the will be nothing to worry about. Following training guidelines – Schools and teachers have a massive role in protecting children from several types of abuse mainly because they have regular contact with children and young people meaning that they are in a strong position to notice any possible signs of abuse or neglect. Schools and teachers can follow training guidelines by making a safe environment for the young adults b attending several safeguarding practices, making one hundred percent sure that all of the members of staff that work within and around the school (including volunteers) are not of any possible threat or create a risk to the children in the school in any way. Ensuring that every single member of staff is adequately trained and knows how to effectively respond to several signs and concerns as well as keeping up to date with all the policies and trainings and finally and possibly most importantly, teaching the students and young people how to stay safe. Doing these steps will certainly help maintain an environment where children feel confident to come up to any member of staff if they have any worries or issues. Knowing policies and procedures – When coming in contact with children or vulnerable adults it’s so important that teachers and members of staff not only know all the safeguarding policies but that they are able to apply them correctly. Teachers, staff, visitors and students should be aware of it as it shows everyone the schools’ policies, tolerance for abuse and standards that the school has as well as what they can expect from it. All teachers and staff should put across to students and be aware of the policies which tend to be consistent throughout the UK that are adopted by governors and should be known and read in particular with the following policies relevant to the safety and welfare of children. These include the anti-bullying policy, anti-racist policy, health and safety policy, online safety policy, whistle blowing policy and the code of conduct. Professional boundaries – These are pretty much important in every single job there is but especially between a teacher and a student which is why the right amount and level of authority as well as power must be used when handling any problems or issues that a student or young person may have. Personal meetings amongst one student should ideally if not always take place during normal school times and if it’s not possible due to different schedules, it is very important that the one to one takes place in a visible and public location within the school. Something that would not be allowed or acceptable is if a teacher decides to meet in a public place outside of school without any actual consent from either parents or the school it self. Noting and writing down on either a note pad or a computer in a safe place whenever the teacher has meetings with students may be very important for future reference and to be able to look back onto which is why writing down good levels of details such as the reason for the meeting and what was said is very necessary. As I have mentioned before, the meeting between the teacher and student should always remain professional. Reporting concerns immediately – Even though confidentiality if extremely important, if a teacher is made aware from a student that they are suffering serious abuse and they are seriously worried for a vulnerable adult or young person’s safety, they must report it as soon as they possibly can either to a safeguarding team or directly to the police if the concern is extremely urgent and steps need to be taken urgently to stop the abuse that may be going on. Lone working – A teacher or student should ideally let someone know when they are going away somewhere to work by themselves and search for someone’s support or help whilst working by themselves if possible. Also, the area where the person is going to go to work alone must be made a hundred percent sure that it has been risk assessed in case any accidents were to happen whilst someone works alone. Taking the register and signing in and out the school system both as a student or teacher is necessary as it lets the school system know whether you are there or not. This has to do with being transparent slightly because if you are doing some work in an open space, people and students will see the teacher making it more likely for students to approach the teacher. Signs of abuse – Emotional signs – There usually isn’t any physical signs that are too obvious from emotional abuse but there will be signs when you have a conversation with the child such as change in emotions or actions however this can be really difficult for anyone to spot as these signs are a part of growing up. Physical abuse – Some signs of this are obvious which can include bruises and cuts in visible places such as in the face, arms or legs. However, there are other signs of physical abuse that aren’t so obvious such as being isolated in a social way or complaining about subtle things such as headaches or stomach pains. Neglect – This in when a parent or career doesn’t give a child their basic protection and care. Some signs and symptoms include poor or broken clothing items, not bringing any food or drink to school, having a very disorganised, dirty and unhygienic home, or having poor medical care which can be noticed by seeing untreated wounds or scratches in obvious places