Intro:
Welcome to the NSPCC Learning podcast, where we share learning and expertise in child protection from inside and outside of the organisation. We aim to create debate, encourage reflection and share good practice on how we can all work together to keep babies, children and young people safe.
Natalie Dormer:
Hello, I'm Natalie Dormer. I'm an actor and producer in the world of TV and film, but I'm also very proud to be a Childline ambassador for the NSPCC, and I've been involved with the NSPCC for the last eight years now.
Today I'm here on the NSPCC Learning Podcast with two teachers to talk about what it's like to teach sex and relationships education, some of the challenges schools can face and some advice, tips and support.
In 2020, the Everyone's Invited campaign highlighted the number of young people who have experienced sexual harassment and abuse in secondary schools. In the same year, sex and relationships education became a statutory part of the curriculum in England and Wales. The NSPCC recognised the need for a service that supports schools and teachers to confidently deliver sex and relationships education, helping young people to recognise healthy relationships and seek help if they need it.
And so in 2021, the NSPCC launched Talk Relationships to support secondary schools and their teachers with the really quite complex and sensitive task of effective sex and relationships education as a vital role in the safeguarding of young people. An elearning course was designed to increase the skills, confidence and knowledge of teachers tasked with this. And a series of lesson plans was created too to help teachers and schools with the big questions of what is age appropriate and other particular challenges in this area. These are all available to you online, teachers listening right now as I speak, and our two guests today have had a chance to look at them themselves.
Now, whilst designing and launching these online resources, there was also a research project commissioned by the NSPCC and conducted by Cardiff University and UCL, that surveyed young people's thoughts and experiences on relationships, sex and sexuality. That report, titled 'We Have to Educate Ourselves', had fascinating insights and results that I will also touch on with my two lovely teachers here today, and it's available on the NSPCC Learning website for you to download now.
So, just to say, for the purpose of today's podcast, we'll use the term 'sex and relationships education' to encompass the whole range of different terms used across the four nations of the UK. Some of you listening will know it as RSHE in England, RSHP in Scotland or RSE in Wales and Northern Ireland. But for our purposes, to save confusion, we'll refer to it as sex and relationship education.
The next phase of the NSPCC's Talk Relationships is looking at that feedback — what young people have said — and more research about how the NSPCC can really help schools and teachers embed healthy relationships into the wider school culture and empower young people to speak up and seek help. Launched this April 2024, is a new whole school approach to sex and relationships education as part of the Talk Relationships resources, and we hope that this podcast today goes some way to helping start that conversation.
So without further ado, who better to talk about these responsibilities and opportunities than to hear from two teachers who are actually delivering SRE, and to hear them share their own experiences and thoughts — two dear friends of mine that I'm so grateful have taken time to join me today — Pete and Sarah. Guys, would you like to introduce yourselves?
Pete Basham:
Hi, I'm Peter Basham. I'm a teacher of science and form tutor in a state-funded secondary school. And I deliver what we call PSHE, but is the RSE programme.
Sarah Oakes:
My name is Sarah Oakes. I work in an independent prep school in Dorset, and my role is director of performing arts. But on top of that, I am head of RSE and PSHE as well. I deliver the curriculum to my form as well as overseeing the curriculum for the whole school.
Natalie:
So I think the obvious question to start with is how does SRE in your schools compare to how you were taught this subject when you were young?
Pete:
I think when I was young, it wasn't really a particularly well delivered thing. There wasn't a lot of insight into any kind of diversity or inclusion of anything other than what was considered then the norm, I guess. And even then it was mainly delivered in a biological, clinical way of just preventing teenage pregnancy, basically.
Natalie:
With no nod to emotional engagement.
Pete:
Yeah. None. None at all. Compared to now when there's a lot more around consent and around the emotional impact of sex. And I think that, yeah, in my day, there was none of that.
Sarah:
It was all incredibly taboo, wasn't it, to even say the word, I think. And so much scaremongering, as well as just sort of focusing on the negative aspects of developing your bodies enough to want to have sex and all the things that come with that. There was certainly no emotional aspect.
And it was all taught with an entirely binary approach as well. So the inclusivity and the diversity of the conversations that we managed to have now are far away from what I certainly experienced when I was at school.
Natalie:
But having read the survey that the NSPCC commissioned, it still feels like the feedback from the young people is that sex and relationship education can still be quite poor and patchy. What I found so fascinating about the survey was looking across a whole range of elements from social media, popular culture, peer pressure. I mean, obviously social media is a massive one that we'll talk about today.
But let's start on the positive. Let's talk about some of the successes that you guys have had in your experience of teaching sex and relationships education. Is there something that springs to mind where you can cite some really positive movement in this area? Sarah.
Sarah:
So we've recently had a fantastic day of workshops — actually from an outside company — which is a really great way to freshen things up a little bit. The children have a different voice to listen to and some different activities to do. It was a day that the children really weren't expecting and included some model making of various body parts, which was really great fun. The overuse of the word vulva at the school that day was increased 1,000%. But it was a really, really fun day and just normalised a whole heap of things that people just really struggle to talk about a lot of the time. And everybody had a really fun time. And like I said, it was a different voice to listen to and was a really nice practical way of talking about things.
Pete:
In my school recently, in the last few years there's a big focus on EDI and the EDI coordinator—
Natalie:
EDI, Pete, tell me about it.
Pete:
Equality, diversity and inclusion. One of the great things about that is currently we've got an assistant EDI coordinator, who is a former student and only recently was a student. And he has been running talks on what it's like to come out as a young gay man in a boys' school, his experiences, and been doing whole school assemblies across the whole school from year seven all the way up.
And that's been really interesting to see how differently students respond to someone who's really close to their age who is only just a few years ahead, compared to if it was someone, sort of coming in, who was our age.
Natalie:
Holding an authoritative— or a grown-up authoritative figure, yeah.
Pete:
Yeah, exactly. And so that's been a real success and has led to wider conversations in the school around that and how we can continue to grow and be as inclusive a school as we can be.
Sarah:
I think social media, although it poses so many issues for children, I think the normalising of even talking about things like this is a great product of that. Children are much more used to certain terminologies and starting conversations about things that it becomes a little easier to start a conversation with children these days.
Natalie:
There's more peer-to-peer exchange of information.
Sarah:
Absolutely. But I think they're still gleaning too much information from social media and trusting in it far too much because there is still stigma within schools and within delivering those lessons.
Pete:
Yeah. I think, in terms of what is working, like you say, the fact that the conversations are easier to start with the students because they already have a baseline knowledge, whether it's from social media, or from their parents or whoever, or from their peers. The difficulty is then sometimes there's misconceptions there. The reverse side of that is that if they've got the information from TikTok, who's giving them that information?
Natalie:
And I think that young people — from what I read in the survey — I feel like young people are aware of that. They're aware to be suspicious of the resources. And they wish that there was almost a stamp of approval that they knew whether a website or a platform was trustworthy in its information or not. It feels like they're asking for that.
Sarah:
I think they are, but I think they're still getting it wrong. I think there's a lot of influence out there that is very misguided and underhand, and is still leading people in the wrong directions; young people in the wrong directions.
Natalie:
Okay. So that's great because that's leading us on to the next question, really, about what you think some of the biggest challenges for teachers are when delivering sex and relationship education. We're talking about the potential for misinformation as one, for social media, that teachers might be combatting. What do you think, Sarah, is the biggest challenge in delivering?
Sarah:
The hugest challenge, I think, is having the confidence to open up a conversation when you don't know where it's going to go. Children will ask you absolutely anything if they're in a safe space to do so, which they should be in this scenario. And having that confidence to just open up a room, not knowing what's going to come your way.
And when you're starting out as a teacher, often you don't know you're going to end up teaching PSHE. It's not a subject that you go to university to study, to then become a teacher in. And so many of us end up delivering those lessons to our forms or to our year groups and it's a huge responsibility.
And I think when you've got social media saying all kinds of things to the pupils in front of you, you have to be three steps ahead of that. So if somebody asks you about Andrew Tate, for instance, you have to know a little bit about Andrew Tate to be able to set the record straight on a lot of those things. So it's not knowing what's going to come your way. And not every teacher feels 100% happy and confident in that environment.
Pete:
Yeah. One of the things that I think I'll pick up on is that, when you train as a teacher, you're a subject specialist and you train to teach a particular subject. So, in my case, it was biology. So whilst I might teach a little bit of physics as well or a bit of chemistry, my main focus is biology. So I very much feel like the expert in the room. Whereas sometimes with some of the questions that you get fielded in a PSHE class, you don't always feel like the expert in the room. And that can be quite challenging for a teacher.
Natalie:
A teacher doesn't become a teacher with the sole motivation, very often, of delivering sex and relationship education. It's an add-on.
Pete:
It's an add-on, yeah.
Natalie:
And for some teachers, I'm presuming it's an add-on that they find quite daunting.
Pete:
Yes, because also one of the things that happens with that is that it's an add-on with a heap of legislation and government-mandated legal requirements, which can be quite intimidating for an early career teacher; because you know that you have to deliver a certain number of things, and if you don't do that, you've failed in your statutory duty.
So that means that often, I think that's why some PSHE lessons end up with just following the presentation on the board, because at least then we know we've got everything ticked off. So it's not terribly creative. All the things you learn about how to teach effectively, we don't tend to do in PSHE because you are so concerned about making sure you hit a statutory requirement legally as well.
Sarah:
And as a subject specific teacher, you often end up having a form or a tutor group that you are pastorally in charge of; and alongside that comes the PSHE teaching that you probably didn't bargain for when you were training to be a teacher.
Pete:
Yeah.
Natalie:
And I think that creative point is a really great one to pick up on. It seems that the feedback from the young people seems to be that they would like more say in how they are taught these issues and these facts and advised, that has more of an interactive element to it, that can be a little bit more creative. So maybe it feels... Coming away from the script, so to speak, as Pete's talking about. But also those scripts that schools have for how to deliver SRE vary widely, don't they?
And this is this is the beauty of the NSPCC Talk Relationships course and the lesson plans is it's really designed in the way of leaning into helping a non-confident teacher deliver this information in a way that seems more approachable for the young people. I mean, you guys have looked at the course. How did you find it in comparison to what you'd experienced before?
Pete:
I thought it was a really, really good course, and I'd recommend everyone do it because I think it's something that — we might come onto it later — but it's something that's not really in my [training]. I did my initial teacher training a few years back, and then I've also done what's called the early careers teachers framework, which is a couple of years of extra support and a slightly reduced timetable. But even through all of that, I haven't really had a huge amount of training.
And so the tips and the advice in that course were really helpful in terms of managing a room, managing difficult conversations; how to prioritise safeguarding but also still allow conversations to happen.
There was something called 'protective interrupting', which I really like — the idea of how to interrupt a student so that you're validating their point and you're appreciative of their contribution, however, you're actually protecting that student from giving away or exposing personal information about themselves, which could then become a further safeguarding issue. And it was just really nice, almost like a script, that you can use.
Natalie:
Tidbits like that, yeah.
Pete:
And things like that, that you just don't have time to do when you're training. And then you're sort of there with, like you say, a year 11 form who are very much in the thick of all of this, and they might come at you with all sorts of things. And so it's being aware of the legal requirements and obviously your own school's safeguarding policy, but then also being able to encourage conversation. Because actually that's one of the best ways that, you know, that sort of Socratic method that we use in the classroom, isn't often used in PSHE. And I think that's where it can be really helpful.
Natalie:
One of the great things I saw that the young people were mentioning in their feedback was they would like to encourage teachers to split them more often into their friendship groups, to talk in smaller groups about particular issues.
They feel safe, obviously, in their friendship groups and therefore more likely to explore or question things that they're not sure about, or give opinion or share experiences that might be troubling them.
And it's just something so simple as that, right? It's actually a very simple thing to do — break a class up into friendship groups — and yet it would make a world of difference.
Sarah:
And I think just the environmental space is so important for sharing. And it's much more efficient to teach a whole year group about something that you need to get ticked off, or you need to get covered — to just get everyone together, tell them the information, and then, you know, invite questions.
But people aren't going to share if they don't feel safe and they don't feel like they've got their friends right behind them in that moment. So yeah, creating that environmental safety, I think is vital.
Pete:
Yeah. Because a student has to feel confident and safe in order to contribute in any class. You know, to put their hand up and answer a question is a big thing for a lot of students. And so, in a PSHE lesson or an RSE lesson, it is even more challenging for them; actually to talk in front of a whole year group or a whole class is almost impossible.
Natalie:
I mean we don't talk about these things as adults. So why should it be any easier for them with all the social pressures?
Sarah:
A teenager doesn't want to ask a question about something personal. If they're unsure, you know, they'll get ribbed in the playground or, you know... They need to know that they can safely ask what they need to ask.
Natalie:
And that's where I think the lesson plans and so forth that are available with the NSPCC Talk Relationships — these ideas about doing scenarios where you can explore questions in depersonalised or anonymous ways, you know, writing questions and putting them in a jar and reading them out. There's all these hacks into how you can get the subject matter to come from them.
Because, I mean, the thing that surprised me the most was the amount of feedback that was, you know, RSE experience, sex and relationship experience, often for the young people, it feels like it's too little, too late. And like you guys said, they've already filled in the gaps with unreliable online sources. So what I love about this NSPCC initiative is that it's putting the focus back on what the young people want to talk about, making sure that we stay relevant to what's happening in their lives.
Sarah:
Exactly. The world is changing so much faster at the moment seemingly than it ever did when we were at their stage of life. And keeping on top of that, following their lead a little bit, I think is so important.
Pete:
In the report — the Sexuality Education Plus report — there was a quote from one of the students about how they didn't want to talk to their parents about any of this because the world that their parents grew up in and the problems that their parents had is not the world that the child currently lives in. And so they didn't see how they could be helpful.
Natalie:
Oh that's fascinating. So it's not even that some are reticent because they're embarrassed; it's literally they think their parents experience is not relevant.
Pete:
Exactly. Yeah. Because if you think about the world we grew up in, it was very different. And the mobile phone obviously has a massive impact on that. But it's not just that. It's also computing, online gaming, all of the other social media and things like that.
And I think what's good about the training was things like, say, taking an ABC approach — agree, build and challenge. And so when you're taking the subject matter for all the questions from your students, you can kind of... If they give you something that's a misconception, you can agree in terms of the subject, but you can then build on that concept. And so you sort of meet them where they are and then you don't leave them there. You take them to the relevant information or the correct information and then signpost to further information if they need it — all within, obviously, a safeguarding policy of the school.
But I think having that concept of actually going to find them, almost, because if you just deliver a flat blanket piece of information to a teenager, they're going to totally switch off.
Natalie:
Yeah. They want lessons that are interactive, that are discussion-based and that are creative so that they can feel involved; that they can feel in control of their sex and relationship curriculum. And I mean, the other thing I suppose we didn't mention when we all introduced ourselves is all three of us are parents. And, you know, this is something that gives parents literally sleepless nights as well, thinking about these things.
So, I mean, I would urge parents listening as well — who aren't teachers — to this podcast to take an interest, a strong interest in, you know, the resources that are available with Talk Relationships by the NSPCC as well. Because we get terrified by what we hear in the news about the sharing of nudes and the proportion of children that have seen pornography by a certain age, and it can be very easy for you as a parent and a teacher, one presumes, to go into sort of like panic mode or firefighting mode. It's us all taking a deep breath, I suppose.
Sarah:
Well it is. And I think from my experience, I now have a teenager, which is one of the most horrifying stages of parenting, so far. And I can, you know, know all the things through my work and through my job. But applying that in, you know, in inverted commas, 'in real life' is quite a different experience. And, you know, he'll roll his eyes at me, obviously, because he's a teenager and that's what happens. But he knows I know the stuff and if I look like I'm about to start preaching an RSE lesson at him, then he'll sort of wander off.
But it is an entirely different experience. So I think it's so important that parents, as well as the teachers delivering these lessons, are 100% on board with the things that we are saying in the classroom.
Natalie:
This is where it seems right for me just to add in that the NSPCC does have a whole lot of new parenting resources on their main NSPCC website, which guide parents in how to have conversations with your children about healthy relationships.
So I know we're primarily talking about formalised education in schools today, but it's just a shout out here to parents who want a helping hand as well. That exists, folks, on the NSPCC website. We've moved towards parents. So what are some of the effective ways to engage parents in sex and relationship education, and what are the benefits? I mean, they seem obvious, but please.
Sarah:
Well, there are challenges. I mean, we write to our parents; we inform them of the curriculum, the topics that their child will be learning that year in their PSHE and RSE lessons. And they have an option to ask more questions, to see more detailed lesson content if they wish, and also, if they really want to, to withdraw their child from some of those lessons. And there are some earmarked topics that the children can be withdrawn from.
And for me, there's a little bit of fear there, that some children, due to so many different reasons, won't be able to access some important information and some important learning opportunities as well. So I think the communication between school and parents is really vital. Getting them in to talk to them a little bit as well.
And sometimes it is just a case of saying, 'it may not be everything you think it's going to be, it might not be as bad as you think, but these are the things we're going to say to your children'. And it's very difficult, I think, quite a lot of the time for them to say, 'well, I don't want you to say that to them', because there are incredibly important and good reasons to say those things.
Natalie:
Safeguarding reasons.
Sarah:
Absolutely. Talking about healthy relationships is the basis of all of it and knowing what is and is not acceptable in your life.
Pete:
Yeah, I think there's obviously cultural and religious reasons why some parents might choose to opt out of it. And I think one of the — it actually came up on the course as well, which was really interesting — was around what to do in that situation.
And like you were saying, whatever stage you're at, I think you've hit the nail on the head in bringing the parent in and making it more of a conversation and not too confrontational. Because I think that if a parent is in a position where they're already thinking about withdrawing a child from something that however many percent of their peers are going to be doing, they're already at a stage where they've thought about this. They're not going to do it light-heartedly.
So I feel like it has to be then a conversation and maybe an education to the parent of what's actually included, because a lot of their fears may not be actually real. You know, we're not going to be telling students that they have to be this or they have to be that or they have to behave... As I say to my form, it's not my job to tell them necessarily what to think, it's to teach them how to think.
And I think understanding— coming from a place of understanding of, well, because like you say, we're all parents and, you know, we want our child to be brought up the way we want our child to be brought up. And so when you hand over your child to a school, there's an awful lot of trust there. And so when there are points where there might be disagreement around that — and it's not necessarily the big cultural things or the religious things, but it could be on small things.
Natalie:
And it could be due to the parent's own past and personal experiences. It can be a very sensitive matter for parents as well.
Pete:
Yeah.
Sarah:
But I think there are ways to have those conversations and maintain that level of trust as well, and just to make it clear for everybody. Some things can't be overcome, but I think it's always worth having those conversations when it's needed, so that these kids can get the best education.
Natalie:
At the end of the day, teachers and parents alike have the same aim in safeguarding children and preparing them so that the young people have the skills themselves to protect themselves. That's what we ultimately want.
Just before we move on, I feel like returning to challenges: is time a factor? When I talk to you two, both my friends, I speak to you a lot. There is so much that seems to be going on and happening, so much that has to be covered in school. And it's like—
Sarah:
There's never enough time for anything!
Natalie:
But seriously, do you think this needs to be kicked up the priority ladder a little bit more? Doesn't it? Those in the decision-making positions within schools, do we need to carve out a little more time for this?
Pete:
I mean, you're in a leadership position, you can answer this one. I don't have to!
Sarah:
I absolutely do think it needs to have a much more protected amount of time within the school week and in the context of absolutely everything else. But I think there are so many ways that aspects of it can filter into other parts of the curriculum that the children access.
Due to the statutory aspect and the high level of importance that all of this has, it does need to be taken really seriously. And time— giving it that time and giving it the right people and the right training for the right people to deliver it is 100% important. It's vital.
Natalie:
And that's what the NSPCC want to do with Talk Relationships. They want to help schools make sex and relationship education a priority across the whole school. And it's embedding that healthy idea of relationships for everyone on all levels of the school community.
I mean you've basically stated that, you know, it is that whole school approach — which is what the NSPCC are trying to lend a hand to — to give teachers the confidence to think like that; to be brave and be able to think like that.
Sarah:
Absolutely. And we talk a lot in our school about character education. I know a lot of schools are basing so much of their pastoral work on building characters. You know, who are these people going to be in a few years' time? And there's so much brilliant overlap with that — and with the relationships education as well — that it should be so simple to slot loads of these things into the conversations and keep having those conversations.
Natalie:
Is there obvious things we're missing where this can be supported in other subject areas?
Pete:
You can integrate so much of this into other curriculums. I mean obviously as a biology teacher, I teach the basics of sexual education from the physical point of view. But there's no reason why those lessons couldn't also include other things in them as well as they're being delivered.
As they're learning about sex as a physical act, they could also be learning about what are the emotional impacts of this? Or how might someone feel if they discover they've got an STI? What might they do? I teach them these are the main STIs that you need to know to pass your exam, and these are the ways you prevent them, these are the contraceptives; but it's totally clinical. There's no point when they're learning that when there is a discussion around the actual real life scenario of what happens if you find out you're pregnant.
The problem is that if it's left up to individual teachers, they may not deliver everything. And then there might be a worst case scenario that the students are then getting conflicting opinions from their standalone PSHE or RSE lesson, and then their biology teacher tells them something different. And then they think, 'oh, well, what do I do? Well, I won't listen to either of them'.
Thinking about the whole school approach, I think it's also important to mention neurodiversity in the school as well, and the diversity generally in terms of special educational needs, because that can present different challenges to a teacher in the classroom generally, but then even more so for RSE education. And I think that there are particular challenges that can occur with those special needs that things like the Talk Relationships course are very good — and there are lesson plans there as well — to help with how to deliver that information in a way that's appropriate and is understandable.
Natalie:
I mean, it is about information isn't it? It's about information for the young people and it's also about information access for the teachers, and for them not feeling alone and drawing on resources that do exist.
Sarah and I, we had a reason to talk a few weeks ago about the Report Remove service that Childline have, in partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation. This amazing service with Report Remove — that, anyone listening right now, children under 18 will be able to find on the Childline website, and adults and parents will be able to find it there or on the Internet Watch Foundation website — where you can apply to have unwanted sexualised videos or images taken down off the internet. There is a service that is provided that can do that, and Childline have a very informative step-by-step guide on their website on how to do that.
It is urgent that teachers and form tutors that are in this position of where a child might come to them, that they know exactly what is accessible to them, that they know exactly where the help already exists that they can lean on.
Sarah:
Teachers need an armoury of links and signposts where they can send children for, you know, any possibility. And the NSPCC is a great place to start for all of those things. There might be a time where it's something that you just don't know the answer to, or you don't quite know the right way to say it. But knowing that there are places you can go for advice, or you can send the child to for advice, or other adults that they can go to is it's so important. You can't say nothing sometimes.
Pete:
Yeah. And I think as a fairly recently qualified teacher as well, one of the main things I do as a form tutor is rely heavily on my head of year. So I will, if I come across something which I don't know quite how to handle it, I will go to my head of year for anything pastoral; who's in charge of the whole year group. And they've got a lot more experience and they're able to normally signpost in the right direction as to whether something is... Is this a safeguarding issue or isn't it, for example; because I think in the early days you kind of thing everything's a safeguarding issue, you know, everything. And actually some things aren't. But they are still very important and need to have a pathway.
So having a clear understanding of what those pathways are like you were saying, Sarah, about the signposting. I think that's hugely important. And again, not to bang on about it, but the course has a lot of information on it as well, which is really good.
Sarah:
I think you can get really overwhelmed with the responsibility sometimes of, you know, having these young people and shaping their lives. It is a huge responsibility, but it doesn't all rest on your shoulders. There are places to go, people to ask, things to read, courses to do.
Natalie:
I feel like we're naturally coming to a conclusion now and coming to an end now, but it feels like it's a constantly moving thing. And as Sarah's already cited, technology is constantly moving.
As parents and teachers, I think, what I really found with the survey, is it's this need to touch base and keep up to date and in touch with what children want and young people need and say and what's relevant to them.
And I think this is where... I suppose what we're just saying today is we are not making people eat their greens here today in the podcast; what we want to explain is the NSPCC is a helping hand, has hours and hours of information and man-hours of research and resource that should be drawn upon. And it's about engaging the young people to feel emancipated and in control of what they learn. And it's starting a dialogue, really, isn't it?
So, to conclude, I just want to say a huge thank you to Pete and Sarah for joining me today.
Pete:
Thanks very much.
Sarah:
Thank you.
Natalie:
If you're looking for advice, support or guidance that you can trust, you can visit nspcc.org.uk/talkrelationships, where you can find information on delivering sex and relationships education in your school. You can find links to all of the other resources mentioned today in the podcast shownotes.
And of course, as a Childline ambassador, I'm going to give a shout out to the Childline website, which has lots of great help and information for young people about relationships. They can talk to trained counsellors about anything, so if you're a young person or a child 18 or under, please call 0800 1111. That's 0800 1111, or you can chat online.
And if you ever have any concerns about a child, please contact the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000 or by emailing help@nspcc.org.uk. Thank you for listening.
Outro:
Thanks for listening to this NSPCC Learning podcast. At the time of recording, this episode’s content was up to date but the world of safeguarding and child protection is ever changing – so, if you're looking for the most current safeguarding and child protection training, information or resources, please visit our website for professionals at nspcc.org.uk/learning.
