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Safeguarding refresher day


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I attended my safeguarding refresher day yesterday and have to say was not impressed. In my county the safeguarding training is now done by a different company. And for your refresher you have a choice of three different trainings that all focus on a different area. I went on the parental mental illness one. Don't get me wrong the trainer was great and it was interesting but...

  • I want to be able to take my safeguarding policy and ensure that is up to date and relevant.
  • Be updated on any new services, contacts, numbers, referral forms etc.
  • Come away 100% confident that I know processes for recording and referring.
  • Network with other early years practitioners.

Instead I was

  • In a room with headteachers, doctors, mental health nurses and midwife's, who were very nice people but you could see them switch of as soon as you said you were from a pre-school! (It is just to much of a vast variety of people.)
  • The only thing I came away with was don't just take everything that a parent tells you at face value.

This was a seven hour course and I had to shut my setting for the day and the sad thing is, it was not worth it. Ok I now have my certificate for another two years but it did not refresh my safeguarding practice or confidence.

Have other people had the same experience? Do you feel the same?

I am really keen to put this over to the people in my county that this is not a suitable refresher for early years workers, who should I write to do you think?

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How much course content were you advised of before you signed up? Are you sure you went on the Designated Persons course? I know out county are splitting elements up - just makes them more money (very cynical view I know). I would write to your Early Years Improvement and Standards Manager - in our area that person is the head of "training the workforce".

 

I think it is a great shame that this has cost you so much money, time and effort when it was not really that appropriate to your job.

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yes that is my experience too - in our area level 2 is 'Multi Agency Working' I had a paediatrician, midwife, social worker, chief constable, Head Teacher and Detective inspector on my table - totally overwhelming and spent much of the day in a total daze all new information but not that directly helped me in my day to day role.

Thought it was just me & my deputy who felt like that, glad to hear of someone else :D

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  • I want to be able to take my safeguarding policy and ensure that is up to date and relevant.
  • Be updated on any new services, contacts, numbers, referral forms etc.
  • Come away 100% confident that I know processes for recording and referring.
  • Network with other early years practitioners.

 

This is exactly what you should have got and indeed is what I got back in June when I attended 'Designated Person' safeguarding update......

In our area that is run by the Local safeguarding board,,,,,,

Are you 100% certain that the training you did covers you as 'Designated person'?

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Yes ours was level three multi agency refresher. We had the choice of parental mental illness, Parental substance abuse or domestic violence. And it was designated person training.

Just feel very strongly that if we are spending seven hours training(and having to close the setting) that we should come away with the knowledge and confidence that we could in the event of anything happening put everything into practice that should happen. I actually just feel like I can go to my Training plan and just tick a box against safeguarding and that's it. I have spent the afternoon going through my safeguarding folder, policies and forms to refresh myself!!

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Just out of interest thumperrabbit how did the other professionals react to you? Ours were reasonably friendly but switched of when we introduced ourself from a pre-school. It made me feel incredibly insignificant, so much for multi agency working when they do not even recognise us as professionals. :ph34r:

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Our safeguarding is multi-agency, but maybe we've been lucky as they always seem to be early years top heavy.

 

I complained about a course that was mandatory training - Health and Safety. 2 full days! (might even have been 3) much it was totally irrelevant most of it. Content included- fork lift trucks, meat slicers and cherry pickers.

We were all early years- yet when we asked specific questions we were fobbed off.

For example trainer says 'all employee must have correct height chairs'.........we asked how we could overcome this issue - they couldn't answer and moved onto next item on the agenda PDQ!!!

I complained to the LA big time, and was told I should 'think outside the box'... and fobbed off again by them!!! However, I did notice that the training is now 'early years specific' :D

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we used to have a 1a & 1b and then a level 2 - perhaps that's why we didn't have a 3 xD

 

Just out of interest thumperrabbit how did the other professionals react to you? Ours were reasonably friendly but switched of when we introduced ourself from a pre-school. It made me feel incredibly insignificant, so much for multi agency working when they do not even recognise us as professionals. :ph34r:

Think they felt sorry for me as I was so obviously out of my depth :blink: Charlie, bravo, tango over :D

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It really annoys me that it is so different from one county to another. Something as important as this should be statutory across the country surely? I really have got a bee in my bonnet about this and am going to try and take it further.

Go for it zigzag - do you want me to hold your coat? xD

Edit to say: sorry that was a bit flippant - it's been a long, hard day and I think I may be on the verge of hysteria!

Edited by sunnyday
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In our area we have to sign up to a LSCB compaq agreement and as part of the agreement the designated safeguarding lead must have attended L3 Multi Agency Safeguarding, Safer Recruitment and Allegations Management. There is no funding for this so it is a costly exercise to say the least in course fees and supply cover.

All other staff must have had at least basic safeguarding but preferably level 2 safeguarding and attend a refresher every 3 years - no supply cover but a subsidised fee - still expensive.

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I'm not sure how they think we are supposed to fund this, our county have just finished training for free (which is I know we've been lucky) but they've now been very quick to send out what diff roles must now do training wise...Senco alone needs 35 hrs to cover all 'core' training, having recently done role of senco....so what the hell did they do on that :/, also getting annoyed with emails from county trainers offering private training separately.

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I'm not sure how they think we are supposed to fund this, our county have just finished training for free (which is I know we've been lucky) but they've now been very quick to send out what diff roles must now do training wise...Senco alone needs 35 hrs to cover all 'core' training, having recently done role of senco....so what the hell did they do on that :/, also getting annoyed with emails from county trainers offering private training separately.

35 hours :o

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They're not saying the Senco/SENDco has to do 35 hrs a year, that is the hours required to attend add on training and as ours is recently trained hasn't got any of them under her belt yet :( and it's quite a list of 'must do's' just for assistants.....funny that they weren't all core when it was free training :/

Edited by Mouseketeer
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A COPY OF THE LETTER THAT I HAVE SENT.

To whom it may concern,

As the designated child protection officers in our pre-school, myself and a colleague attended our required one day refresher course this week. This was multi agency training and focused on parental mental illness. Unfortunately with the exception of one nanny there were no other early year’s professionals in the group. Other agencies were represented by head teachers, midwifes, mental health nurses and a doctor. We completely support multi agency working and know that it is key to child protection and better outcomes but have to say that we felt completely out of place. As soon as people find out you work in the early years you can see them lose interest. Not a nice feeling when you are hard working and committed professionals. This course had little relevance to our practice and we feel very strongly that this is not an acceptable refresher for such a potentially serious subject matter. There must be many, many early year’s workers who feel exactly the same as we do. We very much feel that we have ticked a box to gain our certificate for the next two years and nothing else.

Our objectives for a safeguarding refresher course would be to leave the training:

· Feeling confident that we are up to date with all new legislation and signposted to any new or relevant publications, services and forms etc.

· That we would be assured that our safeguarding policy is completely correct and up to date.

· That we would be 100% confident to manage, document and refer any safeguarding occurrences within our setting.

· To have networked with other early years professionals.

These courses have big cost implications for charity run groups such as ours and we really deserve to have relevant and appropriate training offered. We also had to inconvenience our families within our setting as we had to close for the day.

Changes need to be made to this system to make it early years specific and relevant. How can we get this changed within our county?

We would be interested in your response to this issue and welcome any comments that you may have.

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