Source: Department for Education Published: May 2018
The Department for Education (DfE) has provided updated guidance and issued new advice on Sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges.
It covers:
- what sexual violence and harassment is
- schools’ and colleges’ legal responsibilities
- a whole school or college approach to safeguarding and child protection
- how to respond to reports of sexual violence and sexual harassment
NIROMP are particularly pleased to see that Contextual Safeguarding has remained in the guidance (see Part 3 of the guidance ‘A whole school or college approach to preventing child on child sexual violence and sexual harassment’). We hope this acknowledgement by DfE of the need for contextualised assessments and interventions into sexual violence and harassment further supports schools, colleges and multi-agency networks to develop contextualised approaches to harm.
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Related reading
Revised statutory guidance for Schools and Colleges on Keeping Children Safe in Education is also available for information only at this stage. The update includes addition of a Child on child sexual violence and sexual harassment and will come into use 3 September 2018. Meantime Schools and Colleges must continue to have regard to KCSIE 2016.
Related news – NIROMP quarterly meeting
Our next meeting is being held at the Department for Education in July 2018.
The theme for the day is Children’s Safeguarding. We will be joined by the following guest visitors:
Anna Glinski, Practice improvement advisor at Centre of expertise on CSA. The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA) has been established to help bring about significant and system-wide change in how child sexual abuse is responded to locally and nationally. We will consider aspects of best practice, any areas for increased collaboration and Anna will share news about the latest research, resources and events. A number of helpful publications can be downloaded via the Centre’s website here.
Dr Carlene Firmin, MBE developed Contextual Safeguarding as a theoretical and operational framework used to draw attention to, and address, the social and cultural contexts in which violence and abuse occurs. We will consider aspects of best practice, any areas for increased collaboration. Carlene will share developments from across sectors including insights gained from across the contextual safeguarding networks. You can download more about Contextual Safeguarding here.
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