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.
Karen Squillino:
Hello and welcome everybody to this NSPCC Learning podcast. I'm Karen Squillino and I am a trustee at Lift multi-academy trust. It's a role that I've held for five years now. I'm also the chair of the wellbeing and safeguarding committee.
In addition to my role at Lift as trustee, I'm also the Local Services Director here at the NSPCC with a responsibility for our local campaigning work, our direct delivery to children and young people in communities, but also our work in schools.
So there's some real connection between my trustee role and the day role. And I have with me today colleagues from Lift, Habib and Jill. So I'd like to ask you to introduce yourselves now, if you could. Jill?
Jill Fuller:
Hello, my name is Jill Fuller. I'm the Head of Safeguarding for Lift Schools and I've been in this role for almost two years now, but I've been with Lift Schools for 10 years in total.
Habib Hussain:
Hi there, I'm Habib Hussain. I'm a deputy headteacher at a school in North London called Aylward Academy, but I also do a regional [safeguarding] role for Lift Schools, and I oversee London and the South.
Karen:
I'm really excited to be talking to Habib and Jill today because there's some really great work going on at Lift and we thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to share what we're doing at Lift around safeguarding and wellbeing. I think the listeners are going to be really interested to know more about the roles and responsibilities of a multi-academy trust when it comes to safeguarding pupils in their schools.
Just by way of context, at Lift we've got 57 schools and around 34,000 children. So Jill, could you just give us an explanation around that?
Jill:
Yes, I can. And I think what's important is that multi-academy trust schools have the same statutory responsibilities for safeguarding as any other school. So we are governed by statutory documents, Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE), which is updated annually, and also Working together to safeguard children.
And we work with all multi-agency partners as any school would. Sometimes there's a little bit of confusion about multi-academy trusts and do they have the same safeguarding requirements, and we absolutely do.
But the way we've structured ourselves at Lift Schools is we have a very clear safeguarding assurance framework, which is consistent for all our schools. That is supported by a safeguarding dashboard, safeguarding operating procedures and in every single one of our schools, we have what's called a designated safeguarding lead. You may know of that term as a DSL. So we have 57 designated safeguarding leads with teams in schools working on safeguarding and complex safeguarding issues every day.
And then to supplement the work in the schools and to support that, we have what are called regional designated safeguarding leads and you might hear me refer to those as our RDSLs. We have five of those because Lift Schools is split into five regions and a DSL in one of the schools in the region will support other schools in that region and also support the central inclusion team in driving a culture of excellence in our schools.
Karen:
So just thinking about multi-academy trusts generally then, before we get into what we're doing at Lift, how does safeguarding traditionally work within a large multi-academy trust? Because we've got schools up in the north of England and right down to the south. So what, in your view, would it traditionally look like?
Jill:
I think traditionally it probably has a central team or a central lead and then we'll have a DSL in each school who will report into the principal, because ultimately a principal is responsible for safeguarding in their school. I don't think that there are many other multi-academy trusts with the spread geographically that we have and therefore will have set up the regional model that we have to support our schools.
Our network is such that we've got 57 DSLs. They sit in our five regions, as you said, Karen, from the north, to the midlands, to the south and everything in between. And those regional DSLs work and network with the DSLs. So they can look very much at the complexity of the cases, the regional themes within the area that they are set, and that will take account of all the local context that is going on in the communities around our schools.
Karen:
Habib, I'm going to come to you next as one of our regional DSLs. Can you talk to us about the process that you've been a part of to create this regional DSL structure? And then I'd be really interested to understand more about what it looks like in practice on the ground.
Habib:
Yeah, sure. I've been with Aylward Academy, which has been part of Academies Enterprise Trust and now Lift Schools for 19 years, this is my 20th year, and I've been DSL now for over 10 years. About three years ago, I was approached by Jill and the trust, because we obviously wanted to look at this regional model, and we talked about why that would be a great idea.
Before we set up this model, schools were kind of working in silos. Even though we're part of such a huge trust, which you've just referred to, 57 schools and so many students and we had schools within a two-mile radius on my school, but I didn't know who those DSLs were. And we would only reach out to Jill in crisis. It shouldn't be that way.
When you are such a big trust, you need to look at the strengths of that, and one of the strengths of that is having people like myself — and I'm not the only one; when you start to look around, you see just how much experience is there. Being a DSL is a very challenging job. You have to deal with all sorts of very challenging and very emotionally, kind of, evoking cases on a day-to-day basis. And what I've found, since taking this regional role, is just how grateful everyone is to finally have someone who's kind of the glue to bring everyone together.
And that's what it needed: to make everyone realise that being part of a trust really can have so many benefits in terms of making sure that you can just pick up a phone; and now with modern technology, like Google classrooms and Google chats and things like that, just in an instance, if something happens and you're unsure, you can just put it in there and you can get five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 different responses about what can happen and how you can deal with things.
So it's been unbelievably positively welcomed by all the DSLs. It has been created with one thing in mind and that is support, and it's not been there to do checks and to make people feel like it's another level of checking on schools. It is there as a support and it is as and when you need, but we've also got a model where I go and see every school at least once a term and all the other regional DSLs do the same thing as well.
And if there are any areas of improvement, then everyone is grateful to have a friendly face come along and work with them. So you don't just tell them this needs doing, you can actually work with them to get the improvements and move from that compliance to excellence. And everyone, all the schools that the regional DSLs have worked with, you can look at the track record in terms of all the visits and all the inspections and everything have been unbelievably positive, you know, in terms of outcomes.
So it shows that it's working in terms of the feedback, but also when we have external audits and visits, the outcomes are clear for everyone to see as well.
Karen:
Great, so real early evidence that it's making a difference for children and young people. So hearing from you there about the impact of having that collective there, that being mobilised by the centre and supported by the centre.
Did you have any challenges in terms of recruiting to the regional DSL post? Because they're quite meaty jobs, aren't they? They're quite big jobs. Just talk to us about what it looked like bringing the regional DSLs in.
Jill:
Clearly, the regional DSL has got to have credibility and experience. I mean, that's the most important thing, because for all that Habib has said, they have got to be out there and actually bringing in that improvement and impact with the DSLs that they're working with.
So, we advertised the secondment, and we did... I think we needed to contact DSLs to outline the role, because when you just put out, "it's a regional DSL, here's a spec, here's a bit of an advert or some wording"… I think a lot of DSLs wanted to know what that meant and also what it would mean for them being out of their school for a day a week, because, as we've said, we have 34,000 children and young people in our schools.
Schools are a universal service, though children aren't in school all the time and obviously that safeguarding role in a school is absolutely crucial. I think it was that discussion around what might it look like if a DSL was out for a day a week, and would the school, the safeguarding in the school, not suffer any detriment?
But no, we did successfully recruit in every region and we also have primary and secondary-phased regional DSLs. So the team is a mix of primary and secondary. That's been really, really important because if we have a particular critical incident, something that is really very serious in a school that has happened, because it's in a region, it doesn't mean that we won't draw on another regional DSL who has really specific topic knowledge.
And that's where we've been able to build this regional model, and through the network, the safeguarding network, we can also now signpost to DSLs in schools who have particular experience or expertise. I think it's that collective knowledge and expertise and sharing of that, rather than saying "there is one person who will know everything, always", because safeguarding is too complex for any one person to be able to tackle every single thing that will happen in a school around safeguarding.
Karen:
That's really interesting. As you said, safeguarding is complex and schools are dealing with an array of complex issues that they weren't dealing with, say even five, 10 years ago. It's much more multi-layered and challenging out there, so [it's useful] to have a system whereby you've got expertise across the piece that you can call upon.
But is there also a position whereby the DSLs will be leaning in to new levels of complexity with specific safeguarding scenarios, that they will be taking the learning from and sharing along the way? How have you built that in, that ongoing learning?
Jill:
So we built it in through two ways. First of all, we have a safeguarding network and we meet twice termly. We will utilise case studies, which we will share with the DSL network. We also take learning from our critical incidents, which I've said are some of the most serious things that can impact on safeguarding in a school, and we we'll share those back through the DSL network.
But one of the other areas, which I think is quite new and innovative, is we have developed a model of supervision which is dealt with on a group basis. So it's group supervision in each of the regions and that again means that immediately themes are being taken through learning that we can feed into training. We pick up topics which we can very quickly put into the next safeguarding network meeting.
So I think that's one of the areas — and I know we're going to go on and probably talk about supervision but I don't know, Habib, if there was anything you wanted to add there.
Habib:
Yeah, I mean, I think on a day-to-day basis, just having a group chat on Google where if something comes up and someone isn't quite sure how to deal with it, if you put it into the group chat, there will ultimately be someone who has come across something and they will have some guidance or they will be able to put you in touch with some agency or with some piece of evidence that will help you to navigate that very complex path to get to the outcome that you want to get to a whole lot quicker, and with a whole a lot more confidence, than you would have if you were left on your own.
But also, with myself and all the other regional DSLs, having their phone number. So in that real moment of need you can just pick up the phone and just say "Habib, I need this". And if I can't answer it then I can put it out to the other regional DSLs and suddenly you've got DSLs up and down the country — I can virtually guarantee that someone across that network of 56, or however many other DSLs that we've got up and done the country, someone will be able to say I can help you right now and you will have someone who's got very good expertise and will have dealt with something very similar.
It might not be exactly like that, but will be able to talk you through step-by-step and make that person feel reassured. They won't do it for them. It's about making sure that they experience it, but you will have someone who is there to guide you and help you and support you through that whole process.
And then ultimately, it is through what Jill just talked about, you know, during our supervision — the feedback that we have got on the back of those first supervision sessions has been that people are so grateful and just see how powerful that is to share and understand what goes on.
You start to link the common themes, especially because we're in a region; we can start to contextualise what are those themes and what can we do as a region but then maybe even as a trust to start putting in that network of support around key themes and key ideas and key problems and issues, and make sure that we tackle them as a whole rather than individuals.
Karen:
Great, so that collective resource there; so not reinventing wheels every time there's a different issue in the school. So what I'm hearing there is the regional DSL is connecting that and being a conduit to information sharing across the piece.
So Jill, could you talk to us a little bit more about the supervision model that you've implemented?
Jill:
As you know, most people dealing with safeguarding have some form of supervision. When we looked at this as a trust, as a network of Lift Schools, we saw lots of different models that were probably pulled together either as online or had been based on social work or children's social care, and there was nothing bespoke to education, which actually looked at the role of a designated safeguarding lead in education.
So, just over a year ago, we trained all our regional DSLs and DSLs in our own bespoke supervision model, specifically for education and schools. And from that, we now have what Habib has referred to as group supervision. We have a process and programme. The benefit of that is every single DSL is able to access supervision. We have a way of recording it and the actions from it.
I think the most important thing is it's dedicated time for a designated safeguarding lead in a school to reflect. So not always to deal with something immediately as they very often have to and react. They are able to bring their cases — and these are their complex cases — they are to reflect, look at the learning they get from it, share that learning and then collectively agree actions or review the actions that they've already taken.
And the DSL's wellbeing is also supported through this because they are able to just reflect, have some space and dedicated time. And I'm gonna pass to you, Habib, because you've actually run a group supervision session.
Habib:
Yeah, I mean, what I'd say on the group supervision is that, like I said, I've been a DSL at school for many years and it can be a lonely place. It can be a very, very stressful place when ultimately you're making decisions that you know could have significant impact on the lives of these young people.
I honestly believe that it was very, very important to get everyone into a room face-to-face. Initially it was a bit of, well, that's a long way to travel. But after three hours of our session, at the end of it, every single person said they couldn't wait for the next session. It really showed the power of it, and it was very emotional. I don't think people have ever been in a room and actually been asked to talk through their most difficult and most challenging cases that they've ever encountered and given the opportunity to reflect on their practice.
I think it was just refreshing for our DSLs to know that they have people who care and who understand and who can offer help and advice. We look at how things can be done differently, sometimes better. There are common themes and common traits around what is going on in our region and if we didn't have this model, that may never have been picked up on.
We've already started to work on this with certain schools. So we've got three special schools who are in the same region but I didn't even know who the DSLs were; and after that supervision session all three of them have been in regular contact and are now sharing practice and are sharing experiences and asking advice of one another and they've been doing that regularly over the last six or seven weeks.
So, on the back of that one session, there was so much positivity and people really felt almost rejuvenated and making them feel like there's people at trust level that do care and that we do want the best for them and we are looking out for their wellbeing as well.
Karen:
It's brilliant to hear from you both about the impact that you're seeing already and the willingness of staff to engage within that and they can see the benefit. I'd like to ask you both about challenges to that, because it has been quite a shift in models. When you're operating within a single school but knowing that, as part of a multi-academy trust, there is a a centralised structure, but what you've done here is really regionalise that support.
So you talked earlier about recruiting to those designated safeguarding [leads], the regional posts, but how did you bring the school on board with, okay we're going to be working more in a regional way around safeguarding now, to strengthen it. How was it sort of sold into the school? How was it presented?
And I'm thinking particularly about— there will be other people from other multi-academy trusts thinking now, "okay we might want to think about this". So I just want to dig into some of the challenges and how it was communicated and how you brought people along with you.
Habib:
In terms of getting on board and looking at this in terms of a region, I mean, it wasn't really a hard sell. It was, we are buying into something or buying into a model where we are getting all of this network and all of this support and all this experience, and it's not costing us anything. It's there for us. And it's just about creating the links with us and other schools.
The most amazing thing on the back of that has been that although this started off as a regional DSL role, the amount of people that I put in contact at schools to create different networks now, to make sure that this contact between academies is not just for safeguarding reasons, it goes beyond that now. You know, when we start looking at trauma-informed practices in terms of behaviour.
Although I go in there with the hat of a regional DSL, part of the visit is that I will offer to look at, you know, attendance; how people are registered and then deregistered and make sure that processes and systems are in place for that. I will offer to look at people's behaviour policies to make sure they are inclusive and make sure that we're looking at how suspensions are given and how we can reduce those. So it has been one step, but it has led to so many different conversations happening with other schools.
In terms of going into other schools, the big challenge was I'm a DSL. I'm a deputy head at a school. I was going into some schools where the DSLs are head teachers. So I went in there and I had to remind myself that this is the head teacher and this is a new role. And I had go in there and I had to convince people that I'm not there to spy on people. I'm not there to check up on people in that sense; that this a supportive measure and that we're trying to create a network to help not only support you, but you might be able to support me and other people as well.
Jill:
That's what safeguarding is, it's about learning. But I think the other thing that gave real credibility was that a regional DSL is a designated safeguarding lead, DSL, in their own right. They are in a school every day dealing with those issues. So it's not somebody, say, from a central team that might be perceived as "you sit in an office somewhere and you don't see these children and young people every day and their families", because I think that's the other important thing.
Designated safeguarding leads in schools and the regional DSLs in schools see the young children and their families regularly. They know the families, they know the communities. I think the regional DSL bring that credibility when they go out and do these visits because they live and breathe those jobs themselves in their schools, every single day.
Karen:
It certainly, from listening to you both speak, it certainly feels like something that is being responded to really positively and the opportunity there to share information amongst professionals to assist in defensible decision-making; that will serve to strengthen the safeguarding across the academy trust.
And the reason we wanted to do this podcast — and Jill, you and I spoke about it, didn't we — was because this is about sharing with other multi-academy trusts about what we're doing at Lift. And it's really great to hear about how this has landed and the impact that it's having.
But what would you share from your own learning about putting this process in place with other multi-academy trusts that will be listening and thinking, "right, we may want to do something similar". What are the watch-outs with this?
Jill:
I think the most important thing is we didn't want to be perceived as another tick box check-in. We didn't this team to be: we're coming in to do more checks. So when we do those checks, I think it's very important how you communicate that out and the framework that a regional DSL has when they go into a school.
The takeaways for me is the credibility of those that take a regional role on. They've got to be credible, I think, and have an expertise. It's got to be communicated really clearly and effectively about what that role is and that it's a supportive role. And it's one where you build trust — because I think that's really important — and it's not around, we're coming in to catch you out. It's supportive. It's about developing, sharing and learning around safeguarding.
The other thing we do have to recognise is there will be occasions where there will be a difference of opinion about how you might deal with a particular safeguarding issue or where somebody has a way of working that they are particularly keen on maintaining. We sometimes have to say, we get all of that, but we are a trust of 57 schools and we do need to have certain consistency around what we're doing. Otherwise we can't measure, we can't see the impact, we can't get the insights we need.
Sometimes that has been one of the challenges, around saying "we're just moving to that, there is a reason we're doing this and you have got a brilliant way of recording this and it's really good, but it doesn't sit with all the other ways that we're recording across our other schools". And it's little things like that, but I think it's the manner in which the message is delivered, which is very important. That would be the takeaway for me. I don't know if you've got anything to add Habib?
Habib:
No, I completely agree. It's when you go into a school and you share your practices, or practices that you've found, or that have been agreed. That if you follow this, you will be compliant, and if you go above and beyond this, you will be making your way towards excellence. Sometimes people, who have worked incredibly hard on some systems, might have created something that they feel is fit for purpose and they find it difficult to let go. You have to be very sensitive to that and you have to give people transition time.
Sometimes you can't just go in and say, "you have to do it now, here, right now". You can't have those hard and fast deadlines that this is going to happen this way when I say so. Unless it has to be done. Obviously, if there's a real concern, then you have make someone understand. But there has to that transition period and you have be sensitive to the fact that people work incredibly hard.
Anyone who's dealing with safeguarding works incredibly hard and they do things with the right intentions. And sometimes when you show people a different way of doing something, sometimes it lands well and people can see that this is going to work better and they welcome it with open arms. But sometimes people feel that this is just a different way of doing it and they don't understand that because we are part of a trust, and we need that consistency to be able to measure impact across the academy, you have to make them understand the bigger picture, not just on a school level but on a trust level. That was something that in some areas took a little bit more work.
You do need to spend a bit more time and make people understand why you're doing what you're doing. It's not just to be difficult. It's not just a tick box exercise. It is there to make sure that all of those checks and balances are in place, and this is ultimately going to safeguard you when it comes to making those decisions, when it come to those really complex cases, to make that you've got all of those different layers of checks, to make sure that you ultimately get to the right outcome but also to make sure that there's logic and you follow the correct sequence to get to that.
We have got certain pro formas that we now ask all of our schools to use. We have a dashboard and key areas such as CPOMS — we use a platform called CPOMS to record and monitor trends and to record any safeguarding issues. We also have a dashboard where we record all of our alternative provision students, to make sure that we track and monitor and just because they're out of sight, they're not out of mind.
So there's crucial areas that we do insist that all of our schools follow a certain process and make sure that we all are doing the same things to ensure consistency but also to make sure that we are compliant in all those areas and that there isn't any question if we do have any visits or any inspections.
Jill:
One of the other things around having so many schools which is really good, is each of them has a slightly different structure. So there's no one model, because the structure will be built up on the resources in the school, the number of pupils, all kinds of things. One of things that we bring through this framework is what we call an inclusion team, because safeguarding doesn't sit on its own, and Habib referred to this, as a silo. It does cross over with attendance. It does cross over with the PSHE curriculum. It does cross over with behaviour. It does crossover with SEND. So it's really, really important that each of those moving components understand their role in safeguarding.
We've done a lot of work around those operating models and structures in schools. We haven't changed the structure necessarily. It's more about bringing that as an inclusive team. And one other point I think I'd bring in as well: our size means that we work with a lot of different local authorities — I think we've got 25 or 26. Now, each of those is different and individual, and each of our schools has to develop that relationship with that local authority and their multi-agency partners. So I think it's also being mindful when you go— even in Habib's region, for instance, there's probably three different local authority that the schools within that work with, and we have to recognise that.
I wouldn't call it a challenge, but it has to be recognised and we have to work within the constraints of that local authority and their escalation, which is something when you have a very, very complex case where you might be escalating up through a range of multi-agency partners and we mean by that children's social care, police. So that was part of what we had to factor in when we were looking at developing this regional model.
Karen:
That's great. It's really fascinating because, thinking about the importance of that local context for the schools, you've created that consistency, which is then enabling that culture to develop. That's been predicated on really good communication. So you're not just communicating within the schools now, there's communication right across the network, which has added some really much needed capacity for safeguarding, which ultimately will impact the lives of children and young people really positively.
So Habib, Jill, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. It's been really fascinating to hear about the approach that's been taken at Lift in terms of safeguarding and hearing about the supervision model has been really fascinating. And I hope it's given other multi-academy trusts some thoughts and ideas about taking that model forward for themselves. So thank you once again for joining us and goodbye.
Jill:
Thank you.
Habib:
Thank you.
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.
