1. Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance 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.
2. Children includes everyone under the age of 18.
3. Where a child is suffering significant harm, or is likely to do so, action should be taken to protect that child.

Action should also be taken to promote the welfare of a child in need of additional support, even if they are not suffering harm or are at immediate risk.

Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. Training providers staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early and provide help for children, to prevent concerns from escalating. Training providers and their staff form part of the wider safeguarding system for children. This is supported by a wider policy. Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

In order for training providers to fulfil the Prevent duty, it is essential that staff are able to identify learners who may be vulnerable to radicalisation, and know what to do when they are identified. Protecting learners from the risk of radicalisation should be seen as part of training providers’ wider safeguarding duties, and is similar in nature to protecting learners from other forms of harm (e.g. drugs, gangs, neglect, sexual exploitation), whether these come from within their family or are the product of outside influences.

Training Providers can also build students’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values and enabling them to challenge extremist views.

“Extremism” is vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also include in our definition of extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas. Terrorist groups very often draw on extremist ideologies developed by extremist organisations.

The Prevent duty is not intended to stop learners debating controversial issues. The organisation (training provider) is a safe space in which students, young people and staff can understand the risks associated with terrorism and develop the knowledge and skills to challenge extremist rhetoric.

ACT = Action Counters Terrorism

 

British values include:

Democracy – This is the belief in freedom and equality between people in which power is held by elected representatives or directly by people themselves.

Individual Liberty –  This relates to our rights and responsibilities as citizens; the right to act, believe and express oneself in a manner of one’s own choosing. 

Mutual respect and tolerance for others – Such as people who hold different faiths. This is about accepting that other people have different faiths or beliefs which should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour.

Rule of law – This is ensuring an understanding of the importance of having laws and the consequence of breaking laws, accepting that no one is above the law.

The role of the Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) is to help to prevent unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults. We are obliged to undertake DBS checks on those individuals working or wishing to work in a regulated activity within the organisation, in order to safeguard learners under our care.

Who is covered?

Every learner under the age of 18 is classed as a Young Person, and as such falls within the safeguarding principles. This includes those who are employed on funded apprenticeships or training schemes, and this means that we share responsibility for the learner during the learning or training. This can be extended to 24 years where the person has specific needs.

A person who is classed as a Vulnerable Adult can be any person who has a learning need or requires a support mechanism with Local Authority collaboration. There is no age limit to the adult.

 

How is it applied?

Central Education & Training holds direct responsibility to apply the requirements, and each member of staff including Sub Contractors will work with the learner / employer to ensure that they are supported.

As the Act requires some participation with other organisations there may be times when a disclosure will be needed. This is not a Data Protection clause and as such CET’s Designated Person (SDP) will lead on the disclosure.

Our policy is to fully apply the scheme for recruitment and as such we are a Regulated Activity. This means we will:

Carry out all the necessary checks on suitable staff before start of employment. All the Staff at CET are fully vetted and have been through the Enhanced DBS checks.

Disclose any activity deemed unsuitable to the DBS Vetting and Barring Scheme.

Carryout checks at recruitment / interview stage to establish applicants understanding of safeguarding / Prevent.

 

What to do if you have a concern

As explained above, if a member of staff in a organisation has a concern about a particular student  they should follow the normal safeguarding procedures, including discussing with the organisation’s designated safeguarding lead, and where deemed necessary, with children’s social care. In Prevent priority areas, the local authority will have a Prevent lead who can also provide support.

Central Education & Training dedicated staff can be contacted through either email or telephone.

You can also contact your local police force or dial 101 (the non-emergency number). They can talk to you in confidence about your concerns and help you gain access to support and advice.

The Department for Education has dedicated a telephone helpline (020 7340 7264) to enable staff and governors to raise concerns relating to extremism directly. Concerns can also be raised by email to counter.extremism@education.gsi.gov.uk. Please note that the helpline is not intended for use in emergency situations, such as a child being at immediate risk of harm or a security incident, in which case the normal emergency procedures should be followed.