Safeguarding - Making sense of 'gut feelings'

14th Dec 2018

Prince Bishops Teaching School Alliance in collaboration with Sandstories are delighted to confirm this 1 day course in a central North East location.

Sue Woolmore has been working in child protection since 1986. Sue initially qualified as a nurse and worked in the Leeds teaching hospitals, later training as a social worker. She has held professional roles at local authority, regional and national level, in both the statutory and voluntary sectors. This has included being the independent Chair of two Local Safeguarding Children Boards and national Chair of the Association of Independent LSCB Chairs. Sue delivers multiagency training, across the UK, to front-line staff and strategic managers. She also has extensive experience of speaking to the press and media about child safeguarding.

The presentation and behavior of some pupils – and that of their parents – often leads to a “gut feeling” that all is not well. Conversations make take place in the staffroom and referrals may be made to other agencies – and yet still it seems that nothing improves for the child. Perhaps you have been told that there is “insufficient evidence” or that your concerns don’t meet a “threshold” for action

Course outline
During this one day training session, participants can expect to:
• Renew their commitment to keeping the child/young person at the centre of everything, despite compelling distractions from their families and, sometimes, the demands of the system in which we work;
• Have an increased understanding of the impact of maltreatment and neglect on children and young people in education settings;
• Recognise the behaviours of “resistant” families, who seek to keep professionals – and schools – at arm’s length
• Explore strategies for maintaining a child centred and ‘authoritative’ approach with resistant families, without losing empathy or compassion; 
• Connect the insights from Sandstories to other approaches and models such as Place2Be;
• Recognise and promote the need for multiagency working and positive relationships with other local agencies.

Who should attend?
This training is suitable for anyone who works in an education setting. This includes senior management, teaching staff, playground supervisors, learning mentors, drivers and escorts for children with special needs, SENCOs, names safeguarding leads, governors and trustees.

Testimonials

John Crowe – Deputy Head Teacher
• Thought provoking, personalised scenarios that we all identified with ensured an engaging and challenging day.
• High quality training in its simplest form, demonstrating the importance of communication, questioning and challenge.
• You never really knew what was coming next!!!
• One of those training days that you end up talking about with other colleagues for weeks!
• Fully engaged and enlightened throughout!

Steph Kassapian – Excellence and Inclusion Manager
• Sandstories made me take a step back and reflect on the work that we do to support the most vulnerable children and families.
• The simple story telling method was effective as a simple reminder of the importance to persevere so no children are forgotten.