Keeping pupils safe at Francis Barber

What is safeguarding?

Safeguarding young people is the most important thing we do at Francis Barber. This means that the adults working with you will go out of their way to protect you from harm.

This includes:

  • Supporting you to make safe choices
  • Making sure nothing stops you being healthy or developing properly
  • Making sure you are safely looked after
  • Making sure you have the best life chances and can grow up happy and successful

Who is responsible for safeguarding at Francis Barber?

The adults in your life are responsible for keeping you safe. This includes your parents or carers, your teachers and any other agencies you might have working with you and your family such as Children’s Social Services.

At Francis Barber the Designated Member of Staff (person responsible for Safeguarding) is Ashleigh Askew. Ashleigh is based at the Tooting site but has oversight of all the young people who attend Francis Barber.

Francis Emeruwa is the Deputy Designated member of staff at Tooting and Rachel Eddolls is the Deputy Designated Member of staff at Westdean.

Your keyworkers are the first point of call when someone has a worry about you but this may then be discussed with Ashleigh, Francis or Rachel.

What happens if a member of staff is worried about me?

Sometimes adults are worried about the young people they work with. There are lots of reasons we may worry about you. Some of these are:

  • your parent / carer has shared a concern,
  • you have stopped attending school or are coming in late,
  • you are taking risks outside of school
  • you are hurting yourself
  • you are being bullied in school or outside of school

When we have a concern about you we will do the following:

  • Talk to you about it (this might be your keyworker or another member of staff that you have a good relationship with).
  • We will always try to share our concerns with your parent or carer where it is appropriate.
  • We will think together with you and your parent about what is the best type of support to offer you. This might be working more intensively with someone from our team or it may be referring you to another agency.
  • We will keep checking in with you to see how you are getting on and try to ensure that we are working as a team to support you.

Whilst we respect your privacy it may be necessary to sometimes share information with each other to make sure that we are able to offer you the best support possible.

What happens if I make a disclosure to a member of staff?

A disclosure means that you specifically tell someone about a problem you have. This may be about something that has happened to you or a particular way you are feeling.

Sometimes your teachers will be able to support you by having a chat and giving you some time to talk things through. Other times they may need to share what you have told them with someone else (the person responsible for safeguarding). The reason for this is to ensure that we are making the right decisions to support you and keep you safe. Your teachers are not allowed to keep secrets for you.

We will think alongside you what the best way to move forward is. This may be talking to your parents and the other agencies working with you or it may be making a referral for some additional support. Sometimes we may contact Children’s Social Services for some additional advice or to help us think about a way forward.

Who else might work with me at Francis Barber?

We have a number of other agencies who work with the young people who attend Francis Barber. These include the following people:

  • School Nurse
  • Specialist Mental health Nurse
  • Drugs Support Worker
  • CAMHS
  • Educational Psychologist
  • Family Recovery project
  • Connexions – Target Youth Support Team
  • Borough Early Intervention Team
  • School’s Police Liaison Officer
  • Vulnerable Young Person’s Development Worker
  • Gangs and Sexual Exploitation Worker
  • Smoking Cessation Worker

What do we promise to do to keep you safe?

  • We will do our best to spot if there is a problem. All of the adults in school have had training in this
  • We will work with other people (including the people at home) to help protect you and solve any problems you may have
  • We will listen to you if you want to talk to us and need our help. We will always take you seriously
  • We will support and encourage you and will respect your wishes and views