SCHOOL SAFEGUARDING AND CHILD PROTECTION

School Safeguarding Lead: Liam Foote

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s

responsibility. ‘Children’ includes everyone under the age of 18. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play. In order to fulfil this responsibility effectively, all practitioners should make sure their approach is child centred. This means that they should consider, at all times, what is in the best interests of the child.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance as:

providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge
protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online
preventing the 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
taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes (Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025)

DfE guidance: Keeping children Safe in Education can be found here.

DfE guidance: What to do if you’re worried about a child is being abused can be found here.

Safer Recruitment Consortium: Guidance for safer working practice for those working with children and young people in education settings can be found here.

Children and Family - Continuum of Help and Support

Barnet's Local Assessment Protocol and Continuum of Help & Support Threshold Document

This provides a framework for practitioners who are working with children and families in Barnet and aims to help identify when a child may need additional levels of support to achieve their full potential. It provides information on the levels of need and gives examples of some of the indicators that a child may need additional support. The London Safeguarding Children Partnership's Editorial Board will review the Continuum of Help & Support Quarterly and we will update the local version accordingly. For further contextual information please visit the London Safeguarding Children Procedures.

Resolution Policy

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and frontline staff need confidence in talking with each other about decisions that have been made, discussing any concerns regarding those decisions and where there isn’t agreement, escalating those concerns as appropriate.

Equally important is the culture of how we work, and it is vital that frontline staff are encouraged to remain professionally curious and to raise issues where they feel that their concerns for children and young people aren’t being addressed.

Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership has agreed a resolution policy for dealing with professional disagreements, setting out clear stages of escalation. The link to the policy can be found here.

MASH (the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub)

Contact: mash@barnet.gov.uk or call 020 8359 4066

If in doubt about the services available or the level of need, you can contact the MASH support line between 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday on 020 8359 to seek advice.

After 5pm and at weekends the Out of Hours social work service provided by LB Harrow operates by phone on 020 8359 2000.

If a child is at immediate risk contact the police on 999.

What to consider in making a referral for the child

Have I discussed what I am worried about with the child, young person or parent/carer?
Do I need to obtain consent from the parent/carer or young person to make a referral?
Would discussing my concerns with the parent/carer place the child or young person at risk?
What evidence do I have of risk of harm?
What has the child said?
What has their parent/carer (or sibling, where appropriate) said?
What risk, danger or harm is known to you?
How old is the child and do they have other additional vulnerabilities to consider?
When did I become aware of the information that is causing concern?
How long has the problem been known?
Do I know if anyone is currently working with the child, young person or family?
Who else have I spoken to about my concerns?
What was the first, worst and last incident that caused you concern?
What’s working well, what are the sources of strengths for this child and family?
What have I or others tried to do to help?
Do I need to put immediate safety actions into place for the child?
What do I want to see happen for the child, young person and family?

Don’t forget: Consent must be obtained to undertake multi-agency checks unless there is an identified risk to the child, or it is in the public interest not to do.

Early Help

Early Intervention is about taking action as soon as possible to tackle problems for children and families before they become more difficult to reverse (Early Intervention Foundation). We should aim to identify children, young people and families that may be at risk of future difficulties and provide them with timely and effective support.

Early Help can involve a range of professionals from a wide range of agencies including health, schools, housing, youth work, child & adolescent mental health, substance misuse and domestic violence professionals who can work together to assess and intervene in a family’s difficulties.

If there are child protection concerns - always refer to the Barnet Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) without delay.

Learn how to access Early help support here.

Early Help Hubs

Barnet Family Services deliver early help across the 0 to 19 age range, and we are based in 3 different locations across Barnet (hubs).

East / Central Hub

Covers the postcodes: N2, parts of N3, parts of N10, N11, N12 parts of N14, EN4 and EN5.

Main Hub office: Newstead Children’s Centre, 1 Fallows Close (off Tarling Road), Finchley, N2 8LG

Telephone: 020 8359 3460

Email:Childandfamilyhub-eastcentral@barnet.gov.uk

West Hub

Covers the postcodes: HA8, part of NW7, part of NW9

Main Hub office: Barnet and Southgate College, Colindale, 7 Bristol Avenue (formerly Lanacre Avenue) London NW9 4BR

Telephone: 020 8359 3510

Email: Childandfamilyhub-west@barnet.gov.uk

South Hub

Covers the postcodes: part of NW2, NW3, part of NW4, part of NW11, part of NW9, part of N3

Main Hub office: Parkfield Children’s Centre, 44 Park Road, Hendon, NW4 3PS

Telephone: 020 8359 3590

Email: Childandfamilyhub-south@barnet.gov.uk

More information on the Early Help Hubs can be found here.

Concerned about adult behaviour towards a child?

If you need to make a referral or discuss an allegation made against an adult working with children, you should contact the Local Authority Designated Officer LADO@barnet.gov.uk

More information on the Barnet LADO and to access the referral form can be found here.

Schoolsafe - Community Safety Incidents

Schoolsafe is a statutory service provided to schools in Barnet. To receive information and updates, all schools must ensure that nick.burr@barnet.gov.uk has the Designated Safeguarding Lead email and phone contact.

All staff need to be alert to community safety incidents taking place in the vicinity of the school that may raise concerns regarding child abduction, e.g., people loitering nearby or unknown adults conversing with pupils. Schools have followed the ‘schoolsafe’ procedure and this has proved to be effective over the four years since its implementation. Please continue to report any incidents though schoolsafe@barnet.gov.uk stating the police CAD number (we cannot process without the CAD number which is issued by the police).

What happens when you contact ‘schoolsafe’?

The school Police Sergeant for Safer Schools is contacted to confirm the details of the referral, using the CAD number.
Agreement from the police is sought on the level of response needed (general message to all school, specific to a geographical area, for schools and parents or just schools or no response required).
A draft message is sent to the Barnet Communication Team to check wording and to ensure the message will not give rise to unnecessary distress or misinformation being spread.
The message is sent to schools.

Schoolsafe often send generic messages requesting that schools remind pupils of the ‘staying safe rules’ when travelling without supervision or playing outside, as there have been more incidents then usual of pupils being approached by strangers. Please continue to provide practical advice and lessons to ensure pupils can keep themselves safe outdoors.

Operation Encompass - Domestic Abuse

Operation Encompass is a statutory service. Learn more by visiting their website at https://www.operationencompass.org/

Operation Encompass is a National initiative whereby police swiftly inform school Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL’s) and their deputies of pupils who have been present during a domestic incident. Locally, police officers within the Barnet, Brent and Harrow Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) teams are responsible for making these disclosures to DSL’s. The disclosures are made using a generic school safeguarding email each weekday by 09:00 hours - or as soon as practicable (resource and demand permitting). Following feedback from local Safeguarding Children’s Partnerships in respect of holiday clubs etc, we now make disclosures all year round and not just in term time.

To join Operation Encompass, schools must sign an information sharing agreement, the school’s website should highlight that it is part of Operation Encompass, and the school must have a secure email account.

For more information and to sign up, please contact NWMailbox.MASHBarnet@met.police.uk

Whole school and DSL support

There is a range of statutory and traded support on offer.

Audit tools (statutory)

Safeguarding and Child Protection
Child-on-child Abuse
Building

Contact Liam Foote at Liam.foote@barnet.gov.uk to request these.

Model policies (statutory):

Safeguarding and Child Protection

Contact Liam Foote at Liam.foote@barnet.gov.uk to request these.

Safeguarding whole school reviews (traded) (contact liam.foote@barnet.gov.uk or BPSI)

Training

Whole school safeguarding and child protection training Liam.foote@barnet.gov.ukand BPSI
Designated Safeguarding lead (level 3) - Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership - Multi-agency Training Programme
Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership - Multi-agency Training Programme provides a range of training on safeguarding related topics

Contact Liam.foote@barnet.gov.uk or visit BPSI to learn more.

Some of the trainings provided by Barnet Children’s Safeguarding Partnership are offered on a free basis, but not all.

Designated Safeguarding Lead Briefings (statutory)

Briefings for DSLs and headteachers are held once every half term. Please ensure you are on the mailing list to receive an invitation. Please send your contact information to nick.burr@barnet.gov.uk to ensure you are on the mailing list.

Safeguarding Newsletters (statutory)

Safeguarding Newsletters are sent to schools at the beginning of most school terms. Safeguarding updates and notifications are also sent out via email or attached to the School Circular throughout the academic year.

Newsletters and key updates are sent out via email to those on the mailing list. Please send your contact information to nick.burr@barnet.gov.uk to ensure you are added onto the mailing list.