In early March The Essential Safeguarding Company Founder, Trudie McGuinness, had the opportunity to meet with the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson. Trudie used the opportunity to highlight Children’s Social Care capacity issues and the impact that this has on the management of safeguarding in schools.
The Secretary of State acknowledged the primacy of safeguarding in schools and the need for reform. Bridget Phillipson and that there would be “big and ambitious” changes, with the Children & Welfare Bill set to bring change later this year. Key changes will include a focus on early intervention in safeguarding, with the intention of helping to prevent more children ending up in care and the impact that this had on their life chances.
In support of early intervention and seeking to prevent children having to go into care, the government plans to provide more support for kindship care where possible. The direction of travel was described as being a “tilt towards earlier support and [keeping children] out of local authority care”. Social Services will be required to consider wider family care options for children with the intention of providing better care and less spend with care companies, whom she said have had “too much profiteering”.
In addition, any parents of children who are under a Child Protection plan will have to seek Local Authority permission before they would be allowed to home educate their child(ren).
Trudie also raised concerns about urgent need for mental health support both for children and adults, as we routinely see within schools how poor parental mental health impacts upon children. The government plans to fund 8,500 new mental health workers, though The Essential Safeguarding Company will be lobbying further on this.
In follow up to this meeting, Trudie is writing to the Secretary of State to advocate that as the government negotiates a new trade deal with the US that it resists any requests from the US to water down the Online Safety Bill to allow American tech giants to profiteer from access and materials which can harm our children. The Essential Safeguarding Company encourages you to consider writing to your MP on this issue too. You can find your MP here Find your MP – MPs and Lords – UK Parliament and for an example letter, feel free to contact Trudie at trudie@safeguardingco.co.uk