Safeguarding

Safeguarding Policy

Stoke Damerel Community College: Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy

Important Documents

Department for Education: Keeping Children Safe In Education

Links:

NSPCC Online Safety Helpline

Stoke Damerel Community College: Prevent Strategy - Information for Parents

NSPCC: Talking About Difficult Topics

Devon & Cornwall Police: Information Hub

How To Keep Kids Safe On Social Media | Parenting Online | NSPCC |

 

If you have a bullying concerns please contact the team on this email: keepingsafe@sdcc.net

 

As a school we are committed to ensuring that our students are safe and understand how to keep themselves and others safe.

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is Simon Kelly. 

The Director of Student Welfare  is Rachel Miller. 

The Safeguarding Governor is Jan Cole.

Keeping Children Safe in the Holidays

During the school holidays, our school safeguarding staff are not available or ‘on call’.  CPOMs will not be monitored over the Christmas Break. If you are worried or concerned about a child or young person, you should contact the Plymouth Gateway Service; the child or young person may be someone in your own family, or friend’s or a neighbour’s child.  Plymouth Gateway Service is made up of a team of professionals who can offer advice and support about a variety of issues, including how to keep children safe.  

Plymouth Gateway Service can be contacted on 01752 668000; select Option 1 – Children’s Services.  Alternatively, you can email the Plymouth Gateway Service at: gateway@plymouth.gov.uk. You can also contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000.  If a child, young person or an adult is at immediate risk of harm, please contact 999.

As a school we are committed to ensuring that our school – and all its learning activities – provide a safe and positive experience for all those involved in making our school; children, young people, parents and carers, other professionals and our staff. 

When extra support outside of school might be helpful to explore, an Early Help Assessment is available. This is a way of gathering information from a family about their family in order to decide what support is needed. This might also involve inviting other professionals to meetings and/or making referrals as well as sharing information with other agencies. 

Support and Advice by Locality  

Plymouth:
The Gateway is a point of contact for advice and information about support for children and their families. They are able to suggest other agencies that might be of help and have advice about specific issues. Click here for more information about Plymouth Gateway.

Cornwall
The Early Help Hub, identifies the most appropriate Early Help service for a child or young person aged from pre-birth up to 18, or 25 where young people have special educational needs or a disability. Click here for more information on the Early Help Hub.

Devon
Early Help is the extra support your family can get if you need it. It may be that you want to prevent a problem, or change things for your family before the problem becomes more serious.  Click here for the leaflet offers more information on Early Help.

PREVENT Duty
Prevent is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorist or extremist causes.  The Prevent Strategy covers all types of terrorism and extremism, including the extreme right wing, violent Islamist groups and other causes. 

From July 2015 all schools (as well as other organisations) have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism.  This means we have a responsibility to protect children from extremist and violent views the same way we protect them from drugs or gang violence.  Importantly, we can provide a safe place for students to discuss these issues so they better understand how to protect themselves.

OPERATION ENCOMPASS
As a school we are part of the Operation Encompass strategy, working with the police and other agencies when families are experiencing domestic abuse. Please see here for more details.