The Education Safeguarding Team supports schools, colleges, alternative provision and other education providers to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.
We provide training, advice and support to staff, leaders and governors, helping education settings to fulfil their responsibilities under current legislation and safeguarding guidance. Through high-quality training, resources and consultancy, we raise awareness of safeguarding issues and support education professionals to remain informed of emerging risks, developments and best practice.
We are located within the Children, Education and Families Directorate and play a key role in representing educational establishments at a range of multi-agency meetings and forums in order to promote inter-agency work.
As a service we work closely with the Schools Improvement Service and all Children’s Services across Cambridgeshire to support all aspects of safeguarding children and young people.
Through our work we strive to promote consistent best practice and responses to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
Services we offer:
Training
Keeping Children Safe in Education requires schools and colleges to ensure that staff receive regular safeguarding and child protection updates. We offer both online and face-to-face training for schools, colleges and alternative provision settings, as well as training materials and resources to support settings in delivering safeguarding updates to their own staff.
We deliver training for Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) and Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead training for schools, colleges and alternative provision settings across Cambridgeshire and beyond. We also provide safeguarding training for governors, trustees and other strategic leaders.
We publish an annual training programme offering a wide range of courses on current safeguarding themes, emerging risks and statutory requirements. Details of our latest training programme can be requested by emailing: ECPS.Coursebookings@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Support and Guidance
We provide support and guidance on education safeguarding and child protection issues to education settings and also to colleagues working across the local authority.
We produce guidance documents on a range of topics and also procedures and model policies which can be adopted by schools, academies, educational settings, alternative providers and Local Authority services. These can be found on the Education Safeguarding Team group on the Knowledge Hub. Access is available to Designated Safeguarding Leads and Deputy Leads of all local authority maintained schools and academies, independent schools and alternative providers who subscribe to our annual safeguarding subscription package.
The vast majority of education settings have adopted electronic safeguarding platforms, specifically MyConcern or CPOMS. The Education Safeguarding Team offers a range of services to identify compliance, progress developmental actions and help embed good practice.
For information about this and how to access the Knowledge Hub, please email: ECPS.General@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Monitoring
We play an important role in monitoring the performance of schools around safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. As the responsibility of schools increases in this area, ensuring they meet their statutory obligations is essential.
During the summer term, we ask schools to complete an annual safeguarding monitoring report for governors and to share this with the governing body during the following Autumn term.
We also request that governors and headteachers liaise closely in all matters relating to safeguarding, including an annual review of the safeguarding and child protection policy and other related areas e.g. staff training, recordkeeping etc. to check safeguarding compliance.
If you would like to receive this year's Education Safeguarding Team Training Programme, which also includes details of governor training, please email: tracey.carter@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.
Contact details
Education Safeguarding Team
Cambridgeshire County Council
Team Box Number PAP1207
Sunley House
Summers Hill Drive
Papworth Everard
Cambridge
CB23 3AB
