Safeguarding

Safeguarding is a key priority across all Aspris Children’s Services. We are committed to effectively promoting the safety and well-being of children and young people and protecting all vulnerable individuals in our services from any form of abuse. Safeguarding themes are well understood across all our sites and we are particularly mindful of issues around:

• Children missing from care or education
• Bullying and cyber-bullying and the misuse of social media
• Radicalisation
• Gang culture
• Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Safeguarding policies for each individual school can be found in the 'About' section on the school's location page. Click here to find a school.

Keeping children and young people safe

We invest in robust policies, processes and structures, ensuring all our children and young people are safe and have a high quality network of support.

• All adults who work with our young people undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check prior to appointment. These are regularly renewed
• All schools, colleges and children’s homes restrict unsupervised contact with children and young people only to those who have been correctly vetted and suitably trained
• All Aspris Children’s Services sites have operational oversight from experienced Regional Managers who have a detailed understanding and insight both of specific sites and safeguarding policy and procedures

A commitment to safeguarding

We strive to maintain a transparent and open culture where everyone feels safe and able to share concerns. We firmly believe that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. To ensure the best possible provisions and outcomes in relation to safeguarding:

• Safeguarding is represented at a senior level by our Divisional Lead for Safeguarding
• We work in partnership with key local and national agencies involved in safeguarding
• Every school, college and children’s home has a Designated Safeguarding Officer trained to a minimum of Level 4
• Our schools, colleges and children’s homes deliver individual Risk and Needs Assessed Independence programmes helping children and young people to develop their understanding of keeping safe
• A safeguarding e-learning foundation module is included in our mandatory training programme, provided to everyone working in our schools, colleges and children’s homes. All site based staff also complete mandatory face-to-face training in safeguarding, which is regularly refreshed
• All recruitment into schools, colleges and children’s homes follows robust procedures, developed in line with safeguarding requirements and recommendations
• Robust Governance and Monitoring processes ensure that policy is appropriately applied, that practice is regularly evaluated, and that there is active learning from any such incidents as arise in order future risk can be minimised

Reporting concerns

Concerns relating to safeguarding are always listened to and taken seriously.

In accordance with our safeguarding policy, all staff, volunteers and visitors to our schools, colleges and children’s homes are expected to immediately report any safety and safeguarding concerns about any child or young person.