What is Safeguarding?
• Providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge.
• Protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online.
• Preventing impairment of children's mental and physical health or development.
• Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.
• Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
(Keeping Children Safe in Education, 2024)
What is Early Help?
Early Help means taking action to support a child, young person or their family early in the life of a problem, as soon as it emerges. It can be required at any stage in a child’s life from pre-birth to adulthood, and applies to any problem or need that the family cannot deal with or meet on their own. It also applies to all children and young people, with any form of need.
Birmingham City Council, 2023
Early Help explanation by NSPCC
What is Family Support?
Family support teams, provide services for children with additional needs. Family Support workers work to offer help and support in a range of areas, including:
Working to reduce the effect on children of domestic abuse, mental health problems, and drug or alcohol use by parents.
Working to prevent family breakdown.
Working with families to meet the Think Family guidelines for troubled families. In particular, families where: children aren’t going to school regularly, one or more parents are unemployed or parents don’t have enough time to look after their children.
Offering advice about the impact of substance misuse, domestic abuse, mental health issues, sexual exploitation and antisocial behaviour
Offering parenting advice.
Arranging one-to-one sessions with children or young people.
Undertaking assessments of children who may be a ‘child in need’.
Mental HeaLth
Your mental health is a vital factor in how you approach the world around you and indeed how you approach what life ‘throws’ at you. Good mental health allows us to be more resilient and deal more successfully with the ‘low moments’. However, sometimes we need a little support from other agencies/people to enable us to do this. The services listed below offer help and support to young people. If you have any concerns at all about your mental health and would like to speak to someone in school please email safeguarding@bartleygreen.org.uk and a member of ‘The Headspace Team’ will speak with you and signpost you to the correct organisation or even support you themselves.
Please click here for our dedicated mental health webpage.
SEND REsources
As a parent or carer you may feel concerned about how the current situation is affecting your child. This could include being worried about how you will manage your child’s care, educational needs and their well- being.
Every child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is different therefore we have put together a number of links which offer advice to help you and your child find ways to cope together.
Please click here for our SEND webpage.
Please click here for our SEND Information Hub.
External Support Agencies
We have included a variety of agencies which might be able to support you through any uncertain or challenging times we may be faced with.
Please click here for our dedicated external support agencies webpage.
Online safety
At Bartley Green School we want to make sure all our pupils understand safe online behaviours, but most importantly can recognise the signs of unwanted contact online and thus raise the alarm with an appropriate adult. Parents need to also understand the online risks which their children could be facing. Therefore, we have created the online safety resources page where children and parents can gain access to websites to support them.
What are the issues and risks? While these may depend on the age of the child, the UK Safer Internet Centre has identified:
• Behaviour - sharing too much information. It is critical young people are aware of the impact they have online as well as on other people.
• Contact - strangers, bullies, groomers or radicalisers can contact children
• Commercialism and financial exploitation - hidden costs of advertising in apps, games and websites. Young people can be at risk of commercial exploitation online
• Extremism and radicalisation - When a young person is vulnerable radicalisers from extremist groups could target individuals via several means.
If you have any questions or concerns please contact safeguarding@bartleygreen.org.uk
Please click here for our dedicated online safety webpage.
Safeguarding Communications
West Midlands Police - County Lines (Letter)
A dedicated website which contains information (including honest and candid interviews from people affected by knife and gang crime) for young people and parents on how to address concerns about knife crime.