Safeguarding
‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ provides a statutory guidance relating to the responsibilities for schools to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. This is defined as protecting children from maltreatment; preventing impairment of children’s health or development; ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Ravenbank School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff, volunteers and visitors to share this commitment. The school’s safeguarding policy is available on the school website.
If you have any concerns that a child has been harmed, is at risk of harm or if you receive a disclosure, please contact the school office as soon as possible and ask to speak to a member of staff.
The school has three Designated Safeguarding Leads, Mrs Sweeney, Mrs Baxter and Mrs Poole.
“Our school is part of a project, which is run between Warrington schools and Cheshire Police. The project called Operation Encompass, has been designed to provide early reporting of any domestic violence incidents that occur outside school, which might have an impact on a child in school. This is done through a phone call to school following an incident.
The project ensures that at least one member of the school staff, known as the Key Adult, is trained to liaise with the police and to use the information that has been shared, in confidence.
In this way, we aim to support each child who has been involved in, or witnessed, a domestic abuse incident. The Key Adult at Ravenbank is Mrs Lesley Sweeney, Headteacher. If she receives an Encompass call she will make sure that a person the child trusts is available to help - if the child needs this. Most of the time this support is silent; keeping a careful eye on him or her and make sure the child has a calm school day. The confidential information is ordinarily not shared with all staff, just an agreement on how to help, if needed.
All schools have a duty to share any information with other organisations if they feel a child is at risk of being hurt. The Key Adult may contact other organisations. This is described in our child protection policy.
The sharing of information from the Police allows the school to be ready to help your child straight away, and it means that parents are aware that the Key Adult knows that something has happened. Parents can come and talk to our Key Adult. The Key Adult can point you towards other people that can help. Our aim is to support children and their families.”
Early Help
The purpose of Early Help is to prevent any issues from getting worse by offering support at the right time. Any professional working with your family, such as those based in schools, health services, and in voluntary sector organisations, can offer Early Help services as soon as they can see that advice, support and/or intervention may be needed.
Early Help works best when it is offered to the whole family and when services are delivered jointly by professionals. Early Help is everyone’s business.
The types of Early Help offered by school in addition to a full Early Help assessment include;
Nurture provision, extra playground supervision, mentoring with a specific adult, referral to internal services e.g. dyslexia screening, referral to external services e.g. Parenting support, St Joseph’s Centre, extra-curricular activities, themed PSHCE lessons, referral to School Health Advisor, Individual Behaviour Plan, social stories, additional meetings with parents, written research/support manuals, specific assemblies, advice from safeguarding team
Further information can be found at www.mylifewarrington.co.uk
Early Help referrals and assessments may be completed by your child's classteacher, Mrs Sweeney or Mrs Greenwood.