Keeping Children Safe 2018 Key proposals for the new document include:

The Keeping Children Safe consultation asks for opinions on further clarity about the contents of the SCR, references and on carrying out overseas checks. The consultation also asks for comments about the length of the document.

Please be aware none of these have been agreed yet but other proposed changes are ……….

  • Ensuring that schools/collegeshave more than one emergency contact number for pupils
  • Ensuring that safeguarding and welfare concerns are taken into account when restraint is used on children with SEND
  • Clarifying that when ‘homestays’ are arranged by schools in the UK, that parents (and others over 18) hosting children are subject to an enhanced DBS and a barred list check (and that the DBS will process these without charge).
  • Schools/colleges should have their own child protection policy that reflects local circumstances
  • Ending the need for each school in a MAT to maintain separate Single Central Records for each school
  • Ensuring that the role of deputy DSL is included in their job description
  • Ensuring that in sole proprietor owned schools, the DSL can perform their duties with ‘sufficient independence’ from the proprietor and their family by, for example, writing into the job description that they may need to call the LADO for advice; and that such schools should consider engaging external safeguarding consultants to support them
  • Adding in new information about county lines, honour-based violence, and sexual violence and sexual harassment between children (already completed in model policy)
  • All staff should be aware of the early help process, and understand their role in it. Early help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges at any point in a child’s life, from the foundation years through to the teenage years.
  • All staff should be aware of the process for making referrals to children’s social care and for statutory assessments under the Children Act 1989, especially section 17 (children in need) and section 47 (a child suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm) that may follow a referral, along with the role they might be expected to play in such assessments.