City Gateway College

Relationships and Sex Education Policy and Handbook

Date of last review: / Review period: / 1 year
Date of next review: / July 2018 / Owner: / M. Nirsimloo

1. Policy Context

The Students City Gateway College engages with are disengaged and disadvantaged, and as such have a high degree of associated social risk. City Gateway College also recognises the diversity of its client group, both in terms of age and cultural background. This policy and guidance has been written to ensure accessibility for all service users, irrespective of belief, values and background.

Our Relationship and Sex Education Policy (RSE) policy is in line with Clause 28 of the City Gateway College Funding Agreement, and adheres to statutory legislation in relation to RSE: 28) The Academy Trust shall have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State, further to section 403 of the Education Act 1996, on sex and relationship education to ensure that pupils at the 16 to 19 Academy are protected from inappropriate teaching materials and they learn the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and for bringing up children. The Academy Trust shall also have regard to the requirements set out in section 405 of the Education Act 1996 which shall apply to the 16 to 19 Academy as if it were a maintained school.

This document serves to outline our statutory duties to our young people, but also as a resource for embedding RSE education throughout lessons and one to one or group sessions. In the context of City Gateway, this Relationship and Sex Education policy is designed to ensure there is an emphasis on building ‘quality relationships’, equipping staff to talk to service users on issues such as consent, trusts, and boundaries. Within City Gateway College we work closely with local safeguarding boards and track local risk profiles, we will endeavour to address these risks through our one to one, group work and class teaching, at the time of writing local risk profiles include but are not limited to, Child Sexual Exploitation, Sexting, Pornographic images, and the use of sexual activity in gang initiations.

Any questions on this policy should be directed to the Safeguarding Manager or the Assistant Principal for Inclusion (DSL) or a member of their team in the first instance.

2. Relation to City Gateway College’s Mission, Ethos and Values

When working with young people at City Gateway College it is critical that, as with all other activities we remember to work to our Mission, Ethos and Values. Our aim is to provide young people with honest and critical conversations that ensure that they are:

 Ready

 Informed

 Empowered

This is for all the choices they make around relationships and the consequences that may come out of these choices.

Staff should not lead young people into making specific choices, but provide a safe space for them to explore who and what is influencing their decisions. As such we use a sexual delay model to promote positive relationships and decisions within sexual health.

City Gateway College offers STI testing as well as free contraception and pregnancy testing on site, and we aim to reduce all risky or unwanted pregnancy. In the event that a young person thinks they, or their partner might be pregnant this should be referred to the Safeguarding Team on the day who will be able to offer further advice and referrals. A copy of this policy is attached at Annex A.

Any form of Sexual abuse or suspected inappropriate behaviour, directed towards or exhibited by a service users need to come under the Safeguarding Policy rather than RSE policy. A copy of the safeguarding policy is agreed annual by both governors and trustees, a copy of this policy is attached Annex B.

To protect staff against any allegations of any misconduct the organisation also hold policies on whistle blowing, e-safely, including use of social media, and tactility and restraint. These are all available on request.

City Gateway College also holds a Condom distribution policy that covers the processes for and the staff who are trained to distribute condoms to service users.

3. Purpose of Policy

The purpose of this policy if to ensure that City Gateway College offer service users quality RES advice and learning that fit with the needs identified by the local Safeguarding Boards as well as City Gateway College s internal safeguarding data.

The policies will also outline the training provided to staff who are expected to offer both IAD, group work and or class room RSE sessions, to ensure all staff who are expected to deliver RSE and confident and equipped to do so.

4. Guidance for implementing RSE

At City Gateway College we work with disengaged and disadvantaged young people to help them learn and implement healthy relationships, although a small part of this includes contraception and STI testing.

We know from our experience that relying solely on direct RSE lessons can disengage our young people, whereas embedded support and one to one or group activities provide an environment in which a young person can express their thoughts, frustrations and experiences, and receive the support they require to make the right decisions on their sexual and relationship health.

We recognise the importance of demonstrating what boundaries, positive and constructive relationships could look like. Staff have been equipped to identify not only physical risks but social and emotional risks too. They have a range of tools that are available to young people to help them to reflect on what they want their relationships to look like and how to build healthy relationships. The hope is that through this work we can encourage young people to take on the responsibility to ensure their own relationships are of benefit to them and others.

When working with young people and giving them sexual health IAG it is important that we help the young person understand that sexual activity can impact on every area of their lives, from their self-value, family position, access to work and training, future aspirations, as well as having an impact on their current relationship with peers and partners and their health.

Points you might want to discuss when conducting a sexual health IAG will be different due to the individual you are working with and how much you feel the individual is able to trust you to help them reflect on some of their internal thoughts and concerns around relationships.

Safety and Physical Health (STI’s) should be covered at every session – for tools and activities on how to look at these please talk to the Safeguarding Team.

Teenage Pregnancy Unit:

‘Delaying first sex leads to less regret and more contraceptive use among young people. Youth support workers can play a key role in helping young people develop the confidence and self-esteem to resist peerpressure to be sexually active until they feel ready to make safe and responsible choices… The voluntary nature of the relationship between youth support workers and young people puts them in a strong position to help young people resist peer pressure to become sexually active and to provide young people with information they need to develop safe and responsible relationships

5. Policy Dissemination

This Policy is published on the internal Communication System (Jostle) and is available to all staff. All direct delivery staff will be required to read this policy, and any staff expected to deliver any RSE sessions, either one on to one, or in a group or class setting will be expected to receive specific training to equip them to do so.

6. Local and National Policy

Although expectations or RSE vary nationally City Gateway College aims to be a best practice organisation, and as such has considered resent research and reports on around teenage sexual experiences to ensure this policy meets the needs of the client group. This includes:

 Centre for Social Justice and XLP’s report on Girls in Gangs Published November 2014

 University of Bedfordshire, ‘Tackling CSE: A study of current practice in London’ (2014)

 University of Bedfordshire, ‘It’s wrong but you get used to it – A qualitative study of gang –associated sexual violence towards, and exploitation of , young people in England.’ (20133)

 LBTH ‘Violence against Women and Girls Strategy’

 Pan London Missing protocols

 The Children’s Act 2010

 Working together to Safeguarding Children 2014

7. Staff Support and Training

All staff will be expected to hold a current, or be working towards an appropriate professional qualification for the context they will be offering RSE. Teachers will hold or be working towards a valid teaching qualification. Those offering group work or IAG will be required to hold and IAG, youth work or social work qualification.

As well as these professional qualifications, staff delivering and RSE sessions will be expected to have attended additional training specific to their area of delivery, this could include:

 Internal training on the City Gateway College RSE resource pack

 Condom distribution training agreed ‘commissioned from the local PCT

 STI testing training commissioned from the local PCT

City Gateway College also uses partner organisations including BROOK, Romance Academy and Oasis Trust to ensure all individuals delivering ‘Relationships’ advice and sessions have the appropriate level of training to do so. The staff trained in this area are accountable to the PSO and safeguarding manager to ensure the quality of the advice given is in line with the organisations expectations. It is the responsibility of the Safeguarding manager to ensure that the City Gateway College Handbook on RSE is up to date with best practice and staff are trained to use the tools within the Handbook.

8. Issues to explore

Below are issues to explore throughout embedded RSE. These can be done through lessons, but more likely will receive positive responses through one to one or small group activity.

 Boundaries

 Responsibilities towards others

 Building positive relationships

Regret

 Ability to judge risks

 Who they are sexually active with

 Sexual health

 Pregnancy

 Responsibilities and Boundaries

 Self-Esteem and Expectations

 Consent and the Law

 Sexual violence

 Pornographic material, Sexting and sexual images.

Advice on how to tackle these issues and the best context to tackle these issues if provided in the RSE handbook, It is the responsibility of the Safeguarding Manager to ensure this resource is kept up to date, and in line with best practice. A copy of this Handbook is attached, Annex C

The PSD curriculum will cover the same most of the same themes, however service users will be able to access more in-depth group work and one to one sessions, so learning can be embedded within their personal context.

9. Child Sexual Exploitation and Controlling Relationships

When talking about sex and relationships it is important that as staff members we are looking out for controlling or exploitative relationships. Many of our young people have experienced controlling relationships or forms of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), which can be a cause for educational disengagement and increased vulnerability.

Vulnerabilities to CSE:

 missing or runaway or homeless children

 looked after children

 children with prior experience of sexual abuse, physical abuse or emotional abuse or neglect

 adolescents or pre-adolescents

 girls (current research suggests most victims are girls but boys are also at risk: boys are considered less likely to disclose which may make boys more vulnerable and may explain the gender imbalance in known cases)

 children not in education through exclusion or truancy or children regularly absent from school

 children socially excluded from services such as health services

 children from black and minority ethnic communities

 children from migrant communities

 refugee children and unaccompanied asylum seeking children

 trafficked children

 children with mental health conditions

 children who use drugs and alcohol

 children with learning difficulties and disabilities

 children involved with gangs, with links to a gang through relatives or friends, or living in communities or neighbourhoods where there are gangs

 children with a history of delinquent or criminal behaviour

 children from families or communities with offending behaviours

 children from families where there is substance misuse, domestic violence or parental mental health issues

 Young carers

 Children living in poverty or deprivation

 Children who associate with young people who are sexually exploited

 Children lacking friends or lacking friends from the same age group

Children with low self-esteem or low self-confidence

 Children who have experienced bereavement or loss

 care leavers.

 Self-harm

 Multiple partners (who know each other)

 unexplained money or gifts

 sleeping all day

 unexplained tiredness – suspect drug induced

Young people may not recognise they are in an exploitive relationship as they have been groomed to believe the relationship is positive and in extreme cases the only relationship they need.

Grooming

Child grooming refers to an act of deliberately establishing an emotional connection with a child to prepare the child for abuse. Grooming is undertaken usually to carry out abuse and exploitation such as trafficking of children, sexual exploitation or producing child pornography. This can occur in person but also through the use of social media

 An 18 year old asking a 15 year old to send an explicit picture would be considered grooming

 An individual does not have to understand it as abuse for it to be so

 A child can groom another child seeing it as normal behaviour and it could be considered a crime.

Where you discover young person under the age of consent is in a relationship with an adult, report it to a Safeguarding Officer immediately.

Signs of controlling relationships

 Checking how to spend or being asked for money

 Checking phones

 needing to give an account of time

 not being allowed to freely associate with friends or family

 wanting or needing to check decisions with partner

 Negative self-talk, (often planted by partner)

 Acting outside own values to please or calm partner, i.e. stealing or having sex

If you have any concerns about relationships that display risk factors please consult with the Safeguarding Team who will be able to support you further.

The Safeguarding team work in line with the national thresholds for CSE and use local protocols to ensure the safety of children and venerable adults.

Policy Owner: Karin Compton

Policy Signed-off by: Exec Team

Date: 17th July 2017

This policy will be reviewed annually

Next review date: July 2018