Safeguarding Commitment

Here at St Barnabas we take seriously our responsibility to protect and safeguard the welfare of the children and young people in its care.  

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as:

• protecting children from maltreatment;
• preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;
• ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
• taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

All adults working in our school maintain an attitude of ' it could happen here'. We recognise that staff, because of their contact with and knowledge of children in their care, are well placed to identify abuse or neglect and offer support to children in need. All staff receive regular safeguarding training, and we continue to ensure that our staff, governors, parents/carers and children work together to keep children safe.

Our safeguarding and child protection policy can be found here 

We will contact parents/carers should safeguarding concerns arise about their child, unless to do so would increase the risk of harm to the child. In this instance, we take further advice and guidance from our children’s social care team.

The school’s safeguarding leads are Lindsay Clough (Safeguarding Lead), Alexandra Young, Janice Thacker and Dawn Mason (Deputy Safeguarding Leads), who can be contacted on 01380 813436 and head@st-barnabas.wilts.sch.uk  

If you believe that a child is in imminent danger, please contact the police. Dial 999.

Keeping Safe

At St Barnabas CEVC Primary School we link with other agencies such as our local PCSO and others who can support us in delivering clear messages of actions our children can take to keep themselves safe.

We record all incidents which concern us and inform parents / carers and multi-agencies as necessary and in line with our Safeguarding Policy. 

What is child abuse and neglect?

Some abuse may happen because parents, carers or other adults act in ways which harm children. Other kinds of abuse occur when adults fail to take action to protect children or fail to meet a child’s basic needs.

There are four main types of abuse:

Physical Abuse
This may involve hurting or injuring a child by hitting, shaking, poisoning, burning, scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child.

Emotional Abuse
Persistent emotional ill treatment of a child. It may involve telling children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person.

Sexual Abuse
Forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. It may also include non-contact activities such as involving children in inappropriate sexual activities.

Neglect
Persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, which is likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.

Witnessing domestic abuse is also harmful to children.

What might make you concerned?

There are many possible signs of abuse ranging from physical injury to changes in behaviour.  In some cases a child may tell you that they are being harmed. Alternatively you may witness an incident either between a parent and a child or a professional or volunteer working with children, which causes you to be concerned.

What to do if you are concerned about a child?

Adults have a responsibility to share any concerns they have, even when they may have some doubts as to whether a child is being harmed.
If you are concerned about a child, speak to someone. This might be a health visitor, nursery staff, teacher, family doctor, social worker or police officer. 

Child Protection

If you think a child or young person is at risk of significant harm, or is injured, contact the Integrated Front Door (IFD) on 0300 4560108, 8.45am - 5pm, Monday - Thursday and 8.45am - 4pm Friday. Out of Hours 0300 456 0100.

Or if there is immediate danger, phone the police or emergency services on 999.

For less urgent enquiries, email Integratedfrontdoor@wiltshire.gov.uk

Other helpful links:

Children's Social Care, please click here.

For the NSPCC, please click here.
For Childline, please click here. 

Online safeguarding

If you are worried about something online or something involving you online, you can report it here.

For reporting terrorist or extremist material online, please click here to report.

If you suspect Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) of a child please inform the police. If you have concerns around risk, please inform the school Safeguarding Team or the Wiltshire Safeguarding Team by calling 0300 4560108 or via the details on their website here.

Record-keeping

We maintain contemporaneous records of all safeguarding and child protection concerns, actions and communications.

We work in line with the DfE statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’ and follow the information-sharing guidance included in this document and in ‘Information-sharing : advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young people, parents and carers.’

Domestic abuse - Operation Encompass

At St Barnabas we are working in partnership with the Wiltshire Police and Children’s Services to identify and provide appropriate support to pupils who have experienced domestic incidents; this scheme is called Operation Encompass.

The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, or witness to a domestic incident. Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent. To find out more about what is considered to be a domestic incident please take a look at the guidance from Wiltshire Police on their website: 

https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/daa/domestic-abuse/

Operation Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the police and schools. The aim of sharing information with local schools is to allow key adults i.e. DSL or Deputy DSL the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment. 

In order to achieve this, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) will notify us of all domestic incidents where one or more of our pupils has been present, to the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) (DSL) via an online notification system.  On receipt of any information, the DSL will decide on the appropriate support the child requires, this should be covert dependent on the needs and wishes of the child.  All information sharing and resulting actions will be undertaken in accordance with the Wiltshire Police and MASH Encompass Protocol Data Sharing Agreement.  We will record this information and store this information in accordance with the record keeping procedures outlined in this policy.

Key Safeguarding Information

REPORT REMOVE

Report Remove is here to help young people under 18 in the UK to confidentially report sexual images and videos of themselves and remove them from the internet.

HOW REPORT REMOVE WORKS

Having your nudes shared can feel scary, and it can leave you feeling worried or even ashamed. But it’s not your fault. 

It’s against the law for anyone to share a sexual image or video of someone who’s under 18, and we’re working with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Yoti to help you remove any sexual image or video of you that’s online. 

Report Remove is safe, easy and free – all you need to do is follow these steps: 

• choose your age range
• create a Childline account so we can send you updates on your report
• report your image or video to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
• talk to a Childline counsellor if you want any extra support, or access support on the Childline website 
• check your Childline locker a few days after your report to see if you need to add any more information and to see updates on your report 
• report any issues with this process by sending an email from your Childline locker with the subject 'Report Remove' and as much information about the problem as you can. 

Useful Websites