Current Review Date: October 2010

Policy Reviewed by: Headmaster and Board of Governors

Policy due for review: Annually

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1. Introduction

1.1 This policy aims to safeguard the interests of individual students and outline the procedures that the Swedish School follows when it operates in relation to Child & Vulnerable Adult Protection issues.  

1.2 Once it has been identified that an issue raised by a student relates to the protection of a child or vulnerable adult, the School will refer the case to the relevant Social Services Department as promptly as possible. 

2. General Principles

2.1 The School follows the Children’s Services Guidance book “What To Do If You’re Worried A child Is Being Abused”, recommended by London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames and DfES “Every Child Matters, Safeguarding children”.

2.2 Our procedure applies to all students under the age of 18 or those over 18 who are considered to be “vulnerable adults”. Vulnerable adults are people aged over 18 who are affected by mental ill health, having learning difficulty or disability, or a physical disability or impairment.

2.3 The school operates safe recruitment procedures including CRB checks on all persons in regular contact with pupils including volunteers and staff employed by other organisations.

3. What is Abuse?

3.1 Abuse can involve inflicting harm or failing to act to prevent harm and can include any one or more of the following:

Physical abuse which may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm including by fabricating the symptoms of or deliberately causing ill health.

Emotional Abuse, which is persistent emotional ill treatment such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on a person’s emotional state or a child’s emotional development.

Sexual Abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or person to take part in sexual activities, whether or not they are aware of what is happening.

Neglect is the persistent failure to meet basic physical and/or psychological needs likely to result in serious impairment of health or development.

In addition to those previously mentioned the following two forms of abuse may occur, predominately in relation to vulnerable adults. 

Financial Abuse including theft, fraud, and exploitation, the misuse of possessions or benefits and pressure applied in relation to financial transactions 

Discriminatory Abuse that is based on a person’s disability including harassment

4. School Policy

4.1 Within the School’s duty of care, it has a responsibility to act if there is a cause for concern and to notify the appropriate agencies so that they can investigate and take any action. However, it is not the School’s responsibility to investigate allegations or suspicions of abuse.

4.2 The School has a responsibility to provide information to Social Services about a student or family, if required for a protection assessment. 

4.3 In addition, the School may also provide help or a specific service to a student, as part of a protection plan agreed at a Child Protection Case Conference and could also contribute to reviewing a student's progress in this regard. 

4.4 Therefore the School’s response to its role in safeguarding the welfare of its students concerning abuse is:

• To ensure the person who discloses abuse is offered all possible support; 
• To have a nominated Governor and designated staff members with responsibility for child protection. Training every second year.
• To refer the student to Social Services or other appropriate agency e.g. the Police or NSPCC, when the young person requests it, or when concerns are raised by a member of staff, or the situation necessitates it in any other way. 
• To provide appropriate staff training to ensure staff are aware of the issue of protection from abuse and the procedures to follow. Training to be provide every third year.
• To raise awareness of issues relating to abuse within the School.
• To review and monitor the policy and its procedures as set out below. 

4.5 If there are legitimate and severe fears for a child’s welfare and safety, there may be grounds for the School to refuse a child to be removed or to disclose information about the child. 

5. Procedure

5.1 When a member of staff has concerns about a child, individual staff should refer those concerns to School Designated Person for Child Protection.

5.2   When a student discloses to a member of staff that abuse has taken place:

Individual staff should

• Listen
• Stay calm
• Take him/her seriously
• Ask clarification questions (if necessary)
• Refer him/her to the Designated Person for Child Protection.

NB: Staff cannot make guarantees of confidentiality. If possible, they should warn the student about this before they disclose the abuse. If the person then does not wish to continue they should be encouraged to access support from other specialist organisations.

5.2.2 A member of staff should not question the student in depth. This is because asking leading questions or attempting to investigate the allegations could jeopardise any criminal investigation that may follow. The member of staff should re-assure the student that they are doing the right thing in telling but avoid making comments or judgements.

5.2.3 If the young person wishes to continue to disclose the abuse, the member of staff should:

• Refer the student to the School Designated Person as soon as possible
• Inform the young person of the action that would follow the conversation and assure them that they will be kept informed of developments.
• Write down what the student told them as soon as they can, using the student’s own words, including the time, the setting and names of those present and give this to the School Designated Person. 
• If the student volunteers the information, it is useful to record the general nature of the allegation, where and when it occurred, who was involved and if any other persons were present. 
• This written account should be signed, timed and dated by the member of staff.

Individual staff should never deal with abuse disclosures in isolation and should always refer to a School Designated Person with responsibility for child/vulnerable adult protection. These are the only people who should make the decision whether or not to report suspected abuse to Social Services or the Police.

5.3  If the disclosure is made by a parent/guardian/carer, the member of staff should follow the same procedure and refer them to the School Designated Person.

5.4 Abuse by pupils against another pupil. The school will collect limited evidence and then pass it on to the local safeguarding authority for advice on how to proceed.  See paragraph 5:2.

6. Allegations against staff

Allegations that might indicate that a person is unsuitable to continue to work with children are where a person has:

• behaved in a way that has harmed a child or may harm a child.
• possible committed a criminal offence against a child
• behaved towards a child that indicates that he/she is unsuitable to work with children.

The procedure is if allegations should arise:

• all allegations should be reported immediately
• you should report to the headmaster
• if the headmaster is away or if the allegations is about the headmaster you shall report to head of the board of Governors.
• the local authority officer, the “Lado”, in London Borough of Richmond is Lovona Brown (see Attachment 1) must be contacted

Detail of procedures:

• procedures must be applied with common sense and judgement –in rare cases the allegations will be so serious as to warrant police/social care investigation 
• most will seem much less serious but they must be followed up and taken seriously.
• the local authority officer(LA) should be informed of all allegations.
• the local officer will discuss the allegations with the headmaster to confirm details
• the school will need to inform parents (if they are not already aware) but should discuss the best way of approaching this with the LA officer
• we should consult the LA officer (if a strategy meeting is enquired then this is carried out afterwards)
• if the allegations is no false and unfounded and there is cause to suspect a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, a strategy meeting will take place (which should include a representative from the school).
• if the threshold of significant harm is not reached the LA officer may hold meetings with other agencies, such as the police.
• if the allegations is about physical abuse, the initial evaluation is with the police should take in to account that staff are entitled to use reasonable force.
• if it is the case that other interagency involvement is not required the LA officer should discuss the next steps with the head teacher-action will include taking no further action to dismissal or a decision not to use that person’s services in the future.
• the school can call upon the services of an independent investigator which many Las already provide.
• suspension should be considered (by the headmaster) in any case where there is cause to suspect a child is at risk of significant harm, the allegations warrants investigation by the police, or that there might be grounds for dismissal. However person must not be automatically suspended.
• if the allegations is sustained, the person is dismissed or the school no longer uses his/hers services, then the LA officer should discuss with the school whether a referral should be made to DCFS reL99 action or to the GTC.
• if an allegation is not sustained and the person returns to work, the school must decide how best to facilitate that.

The school shall provide guidance for staff on how to avoid harming pupils or putting themselves at risk of allegations of abuse from students.

Teachers should be aware of the use of physical restraint in school. See DFSF

Staff should never find themselves alone with a pupil.

Allegations should be referred immediately to the Headmaster, not to School Designated Person for Child Protection. 

6.2 If a person is leaving the school due to the fact that their services is no longer  required because they are considered unsuitable to work with pupils . This will have to be reported to the Independent Safeguarding Authority within a month of leaving the school.

7. School Designated Staff for Child Protection

7.1 As the organisation of the Swedish School is geographically divided into two different parts, there is one member of staff with Designated status at the primary and lower secondary school in Barnes, and one Designated Person at the 6th form college in Twickenham. This is to try to ensure a greater availability if a student would like to make a disclosure.

7.2 The School Designated Person at preschool, primary and lower secondary school is:

Cecilia Gregell (School Nurse)
Anders Heljeberg (Preschool teacher)

Swedish School
82 Lonsdale Road
Barnes
London SW13 9JS           Tel: 020 8741 17

The School Designated Person at the 6th form is:

Malin Edsbagge (Host Family Coordinator)
Swedish School at the American University, Richmond, 
Queens Road
Richmond-upon- Thames TW10 6JP          Tel: 020 8332 8361

The Designated Person as well as the Assistant Designated Person has information about, and contact details of other support organisations See att. 1

They are the link persons for the Local Safeguarding Children Board and are responsible for reviewing and updating the Protection Policy and Procedures for students. 

Any deficiencies or weaknesses in the child protection arrangements will be remedied immediately.

7.3 If a provision is registered the school will inform Ofsted within 14 days of any actual  abuse or allegation of abuse on the premises.

7.4  When reporting abuse and filling in a CAF document the designated person must inform and provide the written evidence to the local safeguarding board within 24 hours and also wait to take further action until advice has been obtained from the local safeguarding board.