Safeguarding

What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play. 

In order to fulfil this responsibility effectively, all at St Augustine Webster ensure the approach is child-centred. This means that St Augustine Webster consider, at all times, what is in the best interests of the child.

St Augustine Webster recognises that no single practitioner can have a full picture of a child’s needs and circumstances. If children and families are to receive the right help at the right time, everyone who comes into contact with them has a role to play in identifying concerns, sharing information and taking prompt action.

 The purpose of safeguarding children is to:

  • Protect them from abuse, maltreatment and exploitation.
  • Prevent anything from harming their health or development.
  • Ensure they can grow up under safe and effective care.
  • Take action to ensure they have the best outcomes in life.

As part of our Safeguarding offer, St Augustine Webster and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Multi Academy Trust (OLoL CAMT) have a team of people who lead on safeguarding our students, they are our Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs). 

St Augustine Webster DSLs are also the people who will support with any concerns raised around children’s health, wellbeing and safety, as described above. If you have a concern regarding the wellbeing, health, development, relationships or safety of a child, please use the contact details below.

Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL) contact details

Name: Mrs K Matthews (DSL Lead)

Name: Mr D Sidaway (Deputy DSL Lead)

Name: Mr R Dickinson (Deputy DSL Lead)

To report or discuss any safeguarding concerns please contact:
Tel: 01724 843722
Email: dsl@staugustinewebster.net

Safeguarding hotline number for OLoL:
Tel: 01158550557

This will be diverted to our safeguarding team between 9am-3pm weekdays, and will send a voicemail to the safeguarding team outside of these times.

Moira Dales (Trust Safeguarding Lead)
Tel:07852133114
Email: m.dales@ololcatholicmat.co.uk

Contextual Safeguarding

Contextual safeguarding

Potential Contextual Safeguarding areas of risk for St Augustine Webster Catholic Voluntary Academy
Area of risk Mitigation
Neglect (due to poverty) ·  School ensures a safe and supportive environment for pupils and families.

·  Access to pastoral support and early help services, including breakfast clubs, uniform assistance, and food banks where needed.

·  Parent and pupil voice activities to identify any financial hardship impacting attendance, behaviour, or wellbeing.

·  Liaison with local agencies (e.g., Children’s Services, Family Support Workers) to provide coordinated support.

·  Working with pupils to help them identify safe adults to approach both inside and outside school.

·  Ensuring assessments for Children’s Services include full context about home environment and poverty-related factors.
Domestic Abuse and Violence ·  Designated safe space in school for pupils and/or families to discuss concerns confidentially.

·  Close liaison with domestic abuse support services and local agencies to ensure coordinated interventions.

·   Regular staff training to recognise signs of domestic abuse and respond appropriately.

·  Workshops and resources for parents to help them understand the impact of domestic abuse and how to seek support.

·  Inclusion of domestic abuse awareness in safeguarding curriculum and PSHE lessons.

·  Detailed reporting and recording to capture wider environmental factors, as advised by Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE).
Child Criminal Exploitation ·  Raising awareness about the risks of exploitation, including county lines, gangs, and online grooming.

·  Engagement with local police and safeguarding teams to share intelligence and protect vulnerable pupils.

·  Early identification of vulnerable pupils through regular safeguarding reviews and multi-agency meetings.

·  Monitoring attendance patterns, behaviour changes, and unexplained absences as potential warning signs of exploitation.
Adult Mental Health ·  Providing a safe space where families can discuss concerns openly.

·   Signposting parents and carers to local mental health services and support networks.

·  Training staff to identify when adult mental health issues may be impacting a child’s welfare.

·  Liaising with external agencies to coordinate family support and intervention

·         Including contextual factors related to adult mental health in Children’s Services assessments to ensure comprehensive safeguarding.

 

Our Safeguarding Culture

Leaders create a culture in which all staff, trustees and visitors understand how to raise concerns and feel supported to do so.

Governors ensure that they have a clear understanding of the local risks that are applicable to the demographic of the school.

Governors sask challenging questions of leaders’ assertions and ‘triangulate’ these assertions more thoroughly so that they understand what behaviour is like.

So that we are able:

  • To reduce risk and prevent harm to children.
  • To ensure the identification of, and timely and appropriate responses to, risk and harm to children.
  • To ensure that all adults in the school community understand their roles and responsibilities in respect of the above.

Our school provides a universal service to children in our locality. School staff are closely involved, daily, with children and their families. Consequently, we have a critically important role towards the identification and prevention of harm, abuse, neglect or exploitation.

We welcome our personal and professional safeguarding responsibilities, and as set out in statutory guidance. It is our duty to maintain a professional working knowledge of relevant statutory guidance and of local arrangements.

Ensuring a culture of safeguarding is a priority for our school.

We do this by:
Our leaders create a culture of vigilance and continuously communicate the importance of safeguarding throughout our school community.
Having a system where concerns can be reported immediately. ·       School uses CPOMs recording system. This is a secure digital platform that enables staff or other members of your organisation (such as volunteers) to record their safeguarding concerns quickly and easily.

·       The DSL and Deputy DSLs are visible around school. Posters displaying the Safeguarding Team are displayed prominently around school.

·       Regular staff training allows staff to recognise concerns quickly.

·       Actions in response to any concerns are timely and effective.

·       We have a lanyard system so that adults in school can easily be distinguished.
Supporting our children. ·       Pupils understand what is unacceptable and how they can disclose this information to us, even if the disclosure isn’t about them.

·       Pupils feel safe and are confident to seek help if they need to.
Safeguarding Governor ·       Our Safeguarding governor supports all our staff and safeguarding leads.

·       Ensure that we follow the safer recruitment processes.

·       Meets regularly with the DSL
Working with parents and carers ·       We support our parents and make sure that they are not only aware of what safeguarding is, but show them how they can report concerns to us.

·       We ensure that the parents of our pupils know that we are always there to hear their concerns and that their concerns will always be confidential.
Continual Professional Development ·       As a school we use Flick safeguarding training every September for all staff and governors.

·       DSL attends Local Authority DSL termly briefing sessions. Information/themes/training disseminated to staff.

·       DSL attends the DSL Networks each term at Trust level. Information/themes/training disseminated to staff

·       Regular practice in staff meetings to ensure that practical examples of safeguarding are discussed to ensure that we keep safeguarding at the forefront of all that we do.

·       All staff understand and recognise risk, as well as potential signs of harm, abuse or other safeguarding concerns
Curriculum ·       Elements of our curriculum enable pupils to recognise and respond to risks to their wellbeing which are successfully designed and delivered – for example,

o learning about online safety or healthy relationships.

o Clear RSE programme in school.
Environment ·       Our environment is effectively designed to safeguard students – this includes physical aspects of the learning environment as well as more cultural or behavioural elements, such as zero-tolerance of discriminatory language.

·       All adults wear their allocated lanyard at all times whilst on site. (These must be clearly visible to all staff and pupils at all times)

Safeguarding Policies

Please contact the school office if you require a policy in a different language.

Our Lady of Lourdes CMAT Safeguarding Statement

Our Lady of Lourdes CMAT Safeguarding Policy

Safeguarding for Parents

We feel that it is important to support our parents to know how they can protect their children, where to find help and raise concerns if necessary.

As well as skills which are taught within the specific curriculum of Religious Education, PSHE & RSE, please find below contact details for a variety of organisations who support parents and young people if they have any safeguarding, mental health or welfare needs.

  • Parent line 07520 619919: Healthy Family Teams confidential texting service to provide parents and carers advice around feeding, child development, parenting advice and support, emotional health and wellbeing, behaviour difficulties and family health.
  • Health4kids – healthforkids.co.uk; this is an NHS site supporting young children and parents.

All the above websites are for students and their families should they need them.

CAMHS crisis team: (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team) part of the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

This service is for young people experiencing a mental health crisis. This includes young people who:

  • are at risk of immediate and significant self-harm
  • are an immediate and significant risk to others due to their mental health
  • are being considered for admission to a mental health inpatient unit
  • are in acute psychological or emotional distress that is causing them to not be able to go about their daily activities, such as going to school and looking after themselves

Tel: 01522 309120

Safeguarding for Pupils

We feel that it is important to support our pupils to know how they can be safe and protected, and to empower them to recognise situations which are unsuitable for them. As well as skills which are taught within the specific curriculum of Religious Education, PSHE & RSE, please find below contact details for a variety of organisations who support young people and their families if they have any safeguarding, mental health or welfare needs.

  • Child line 0800 1111 childline.org.uk; Childline is here to help anyone under 19 in the UK with any issue they’re going through. You can talk about anything. Whether it’s something big or small, trained counsellors are on hand to support you.
  • ChatHealth – 07520 649893: this is a confidential texting servicefor 13 to 19 year olds in Lincolnshire Healthcare NHS Trust.
  • Kooth – kooth.com: Free, safe and anonymous online support for young people
  • Health4teens – healthforteens.co.uk– this is an NHS site supporting young people around emotional wellbeing.
  • Health4kids – healthforkids.co.uk: this is an NHS site supporting young children and parents.
  • Young Minds – youngminds.org.uk: this organisation support young people to have the best Mental Health
  • Jigsaw – https://www.changegrowlive.org/jigsaw-young-person-family-service-nottingham/info: Support people up to the age of 18 with their drug and alcohol use. The service is free and confidential.

Local Authority Multi Agency teams

If you have any concerns regarding Safeguarding any child, you can also contact the following Local Authority Multi Agency teams:

Lincolnshire

North Lincolnshire

North East Lincolnshire