Safeguarding Week takes place week commencing 24 June 2024 across all of West Yorkshire and includes Leeds Safeguarding Children Partnership, Safer Stronger Communities, Leeds Safeguarding Adults Board, West Yorkshire Police, and Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees Safeguarding Boards and Partnerships.
Safeguarding children, young people, adults and families remains a priority for all of us. Help us to make Safeguarding Week a success by showcasing and celebrating the fantastic work that you do to protect and safeguard all people in Leeds.
This is an opportunity for all organisations to celebrate and share good practice, and raise awareness of the services you provide to protect and support families and promote this across the city.
West Yorkshire Regional Events
This year we have teamed up with the regional Safeguarding Boards and Partnerships to provide a programme of FREE events available to anyone in West Yorkshire.
You can book your place on any of the following sessions:
Monday 24 June - Hosted by Leeds
10.25 to 12.00 Webinar: Office of the Public Guardian: Supervision and Investigation services
Lasting power of attorneys (LPA) and Deputyships from the Court of Protection both involve a nominated person or people making important decisions for others who cannot decide for themselves. Sometimes they are misused e.g., decisions that are not in the best interests of the individual, misusing their money or property, or neglecting their welfare.
In this webinar by Office of the Public Guardian you will hear about:
- Purpose of LPA and Deputyship
- How an LPA or Deputyship might be misused
- What to do if you suspect misuse
-
Investigation and supervision by OPG.
12.30 to 13.30 Online briefing: Non-fatal Strangulation
In 2022 a new offence of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation came into force in England and Wales. Strangulation is now widely recognised as a particularly high-risk element of domestic abuse, and we know that victims are seven times more likely to be murdered by their partner if there has been non-fatal strangulation beforehand.
Even when strangulation and suffocation are not fatal, it poses significant risks to those experiencing it, and yet there are frequently no visible signs of injury. This 1-hr briefing will cover:
- What is Non-fatal Strangulation & Suffocation (NFS)
- What is the prevalence of NFS
- Why is it essential for the Leeds workforce to know about it
- Potential impact of NFS (short term and longer term).
14:00 to 15:00 Online session: Risks Outside the Home
The session will focus on:
- a better understanding of what we mean by contextual safeguarding
- how we can ask better questions about a young person’s situation, that recognise the impact of the public/social context and consequently their safety
- how can we better respond to harm and abuse posed to young people outside their home, either from adults or other young people
- what support is available to practitioners and families.
Tuesday 25 June - Hosted by Kirklees
9:30 to 12:30 Kirklees Learning from Tragedy - Working Together to Get it Right
Learning from Reviews and how the learning may affect / change the way in which you work with people, is an important aspect for anyone working or volunteering with Adults and Children. We want to significantly reduce the risk of people dying or suffering serious life changing abuse or neglect.
This session will focus on:
- What is a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) / Domestic Homicide Review (DHR) and Child Safeguarding Practice Review (CSPR) and why do we do them?
- What is the process?
- What are the recurring themes from Reviews?
- What are your responsibilities? Why it is important for the whole Kirklees partnership workforce, regardless of role, to understand these responsibilities?
- How the 3 Boards can assist you to reflect on the learning and change the way in which you work to reduce the risk of people being the subject of these types of review.
There will be a panel of experts to offer a Question-and-Answer session – remember there is no such thing as a stupid question – you only know what you know. This is an opportunity to find out what you need to know for your role and how you can effectively learn and make changes following reviews.
Wednesday 26 June - Hosted by Wakefield
09:00 to 12:00 Online Masterclass: Serious Youth Violence
This masterclass from Wakefield Safeguarding Children Partnership will explore what serious youth violence looks like in the Wakefield District.
With input from the St Giles Trust and Ivison, we will take a deep dive into the lived experience of children and their families, as well as learning from audit and signposting to services.
14:00 to 15:30 Online session: Active Listening and professional curiosity (Safeguarding Adults)
The session aims to explore practitioners ability to be professionally curious and develop their skills in active listening. It will use presentation skills, input from attendees and a short video.
Thursday 27 June - Hosted by Calderdale
13:00 to 16:30 Online session: Active Listening and professional curiosity (Safeguarding Adults)
Webinar: Mental capacity and deprivations of liberty for those aged 16 and above - Webinar by Neil Allen
This half-day interactive course offers you the opportunity to enhance your knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and deprivation of liberty issues for those aged 16 and above, and to familiarise yourself with the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Cheshire West.
In addition to the use of case studies to assist learning, participants will be encouraged to identify their own legal and practice issues for discussion. Amongst the areas to be considered will be the following:
- Assessing mental capacity for young people and adults
- Scope and interface with parental responsibility
- Determining when a young person and adult is deprived of their liberty following the Supreme Court’s decision
- When the safeguards of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court are required to authorise a deprivation of liberty
- When the safeguards of the Court of Protection are required to authorise a deprivation of liberty.
By the end of the course, participants will:
- Understand the difference between restricting movement and depriving liberty
- Have a better understanding of how to identify a deprivation of liberty
- Be more familiar with the High Court procedure
- Be more familiar with the Court of Protection procedure
- Be able to access further online resources to develop learning.
Friday 28 June - Hosted by Bradford
10:00 to 11:30 Online session: Self-Neglect-Case based discussion
Self-neglect is a global public health problem, it is under recognised, under reported and poorly understood. Much of the literature on self-neglect is focused on understanding the phenomenon as well as the causes, and consequences. There appears to be less literature on professional perceptions and attitudes about self-neglect.
The aim of this interactive session is to explore the issue of self-neglect through case-based discussion and sharing experiences. The objective is to generate ideas as to how we can reduce self-neglect, and gain a deeper understanding, of the perceptions and experiences of professionals working with individuals who self-neglect. Including discussion of stigma, trauma, social isolation, and mental capacity in the context of decision making and self-neglect.
13.30 to 15.00 Online Professional Practice session: Bruising on Immobile Babies and Children
Do you understand what steps to take when spotting bruising on babies? Do you feel confident in making / assessing a referral on bruising on immobile babies and what questions to ask?
Are you able to challenge decisions making with regards to risk for children?
This is a Professional Practice session on immobile babies.
Aimed at: Frontline Practitioners from all agencies
The session is based upon effective multi-agency working and case discussion. Case discussions will form the basis of multi-agency conversations about risk using current practice methods. The session will look at bruising in babies and children looking at real case examples. The session will cover barriers to effective working and looking at how we can improve.
We have also compiled the following list of useful resources and videos for all practitioners to access:
Team Briefings
We have developed Team briefings to encourage discussions and reflection on a variety of safeguarding subjects within your team meetings.
They are available on the following subjects:
- CSE
- Child Death Process
- Neglect
- Think Family, Work Family
- Domestic Violence and Abuse
- Child Criminal Exploitation
- Harmful Sexual Behaviour
- Female Genital Mutilation
- Basic Introduction to Missing or Absent Children
- Dynamic Risk Assessment.
E-Safety Guidance
Online safety is not just an IT issue, it is about safeguarding children and young people whenever they are online.
The use of technology has become a significant component of many safeguarding issues, often providing a platform which can be exploited intentionally or unintentionally. An effective approach to online safety provides an organisation, school or college with a framework with which to protect and educate their staff and the children and young people who they work with, and respond to any concerns.
E-Safety Guidance - Discover what the minimum standards for that an organisation should have in place and what should be reflected within your own policies and procedures.
Was Not Brought
Many children and adults are reliant on someone else to take them to meetings or appointments that relate to their welfare, care or health and as a result they are sometimes not taken to them. This may mean that a practitioner may record them as having ‘not attended’.
The Leeds Safeguarding Children Partnership, Safer Leeds and Leeds Safeguarding Adults Board see this as a concern and are asking all Leeds practitioners to use “Was Not Brought” rather than “Did Not Attend” for recording or noting the non-attendance of children, young people and adults who are reliant on someone else to take them to a meeting or appointment.
Find out about the Was Not Brought approach and the actions you should take to record non attendance at appointments.
Early Help Approach and Strategy
Early help is a collaborative approach not a provision and relies on local agencies working together effectively with families to identify who needs help and then to meet their varied needs. Early help can be provided through a single agency or a multi-agency response as appropriate to the needs of the child and family and the concern.
Find out about the Early Help Approach and Strategy.
YouTube based Training Sessions
Increase your knowledge by accessing one of our YouTube based training sessions. These courses can be undertaken in your own time and are available free of charge.
Introduction to County Lines
General Awareness of Modern Slavery
Basic Introduction to Harmful Sexual Behaviour Displayed by Children.
Learning from Practice
Looking at practice, and understanding what happened and why things happened as they did, can help to improve future responses.
The LSCP strongly believes that all reviews, and associated processes, are about considering the details of a particular case, looking at how decisions were informed and actioned based on what was known at the time, identifying good practice along with any potential opportunities for practice development and improvement.
Take a look at the Learning from Reviews section to see how you can improve your practice.
Safeguarding Topics
See our Safeguarding Topics section, where practitioners can find a rich source of local and national information covering a range of safeguarding topics, to support them in their role protecting children and young people.
We encourage all practitioners to explore these pages, to increase their knowledge and understanding of some of the areas that can make children and young people vulnerable.
Throughout the week we all be active on social media and invite all our partners to post information on their own activities using the hashtag #safeguardingweek2024 and don't forget to use the Safeguarding Week stamp.
