To ask if anyone is a School DSL/Safeguarding Officer?

[NewJobGoingCrazy]

If so, any w

Words of wisdom or advice for a new starter?!
Start in a week and I am so nervous!

Record EVERYTHING, however small. You just don't know when you will need it.

Be realistic. Unfortunately, you will make lots of referrals that "don't meet criteria " and the criteria for social service involvement seems to get higher each year. But still make them because it's the right thing to do.

Be prepared for everything to come back to you, what you did, why, what you didn't do, why not!

Record, record and then record again!

Oh, and after that, record again!

Thank you @spanieleyes
I am trying to take things in my stride but there's so much to read and learn, and I need to build relationships with pupils and parents and it's a lot! I've done a safeguarding role before but it was a while ago like 3 years ago now - in the meantime I'd taken a different route in the same sector

Gosh this must be a not as popular job as I thought! Bump again

Congratulations, OP! Taking on a DSL role is no walk in the park, but you will hopefully find it really rewarding if you set aside the enormous frustration you’re about to feel towards children’s services, your LA’s legal team, the police and anyone who misguidedly won’t share vital information with you because of GDPR. Every service is overstretched and understaffed and this will impact on children you perceive as needing support getting help. The threshold is high and most of your referrals will fall short. BUT, you will absolutely be able to make a difference to the children who disclose to you. Children who disclose will generally have tested you out a few times and have decided that you (or one of your teachers) are a safe person. I’ve always felt this to be an honour and a privilege. You will encounter awful things in the role, but by being their safe person they will feel that an adult hears them, believes them and will advocate for them which is no small thing. Good luck!

Get to know people in your area - your main links in early help, children's services and the mash (if you have one). If you are near LA Borders the ensure that you have these contacts in any local authority that your families could live in. Look at what training your local safeguarding partnership board offer and make use of it. Understand the LADO reporting process in your area.

Oh! And work as a team. Include other people in your decision making so that it is transparent and they learn with you. And train your staff regularly. Referrals tend to go up after training sessions so it keeps it in everyone’s mind.

Our local authority has a DSL training pathway and three briefing meetings throughout the year for updates/refreshers etc. plus monthly drop in sessions. All mandatory and all invaluable , both for the actual training and the networking that goes on. A previous poster is correct, frustration will be the order of the day though!

Cross every t and dot every i without fail. With every case have it in your head that it could go to special case review.

Keep all emails even to colleagues professional in case they subject to a Subject access request.

Be prepared to argue with social workers a lot as they will think school has a magic wand that can make everything ok.

Be prepared to feel rage and frustration against other services but remember they will feel just as frustrated as you as they are so poorly resourced.

Be prepared to sit in lots of tedious meetings about 'changing the narrative'

Be kind and non patronising to parents. Listen to them. They are in some ways your colleagues!

Be patient with staff who send referrals on CPOMS because a child looks tired in a lesson. It's better that they refer than not.

Take time to look after yourself. Make sure you get supervision.

DSL as a full time role???? Wow!

I was coming on to say have a bank of activities/worksheets for your class when you get pulled out of lessons 100 times a day but it sounds like a full time role? Amazing! How it should be!

Learn to switch off/leave work at work. It's soooo easy to worry about them but you need to be able to escape from the emotional toll or it'll eat you up inside.

Thank you everyone. So much good advice here. I will read/re read this advice every day before I start, to let it sink in.
@Itstarts Yes full time role!

@spanieleyes I've got a training log that I've put together. Our LA has a 3-part DSL course plus loads of Ed Psych and LSCP training that I'm booking on to.

Get yourself a book to write contacts in (or a spreadsheet if you must!) I use one of the old style address books. Every time you come across a new SW, EWO, police officer etc put their details in your book as you are likely to come across them again in the future. Don’t do what I did and record by surname - record by their first name as this is how you will know them. I find myself thinking “I must call Anne the SW” and not being able to remember Anne’s surname to look up her number!
Make sure you get regular clinical supervision.
Always discuss things you’re not sure about with a fellow DSL or the MASH team. There are rarely “definite” answers to situations. You and your colleagues will come to a decision based on training, experience and knowledge about the child.
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Your colleagues need to be playing their part in following up minor concerns, rather than just recording and noting their action as “reported to the DSL”

Must be a huge school, I'm DSL and SENCO and Head ( and teach too!)

Can't agree more about recording social workers by first name, I can NEVER remember their surnames!

@spanieleyes not a huge school, about 90 pupils I believe. It's a specialist provision though.
Luckily I'm coming from a team where I've worked with most of the LAs social workers so know most of them (and have links to their teams)- it'll be out of area ones that I need to note down

@GladysGeorgina thank you. I queried supervision at interview and they assured me I would have it. I also have private clinical supervisor as I'm a counsellor x

Jeez are you a MAT? Our is PMLD provision 214 pupils lots of CIC and CIN and our DSL is the Head.
Are you using My Concerns to record things? If you are I also recommend Confide which works alongside. This allows staff to easily whistle-blower any small concerns regarding other staff.
I'm the Safeguarding Governor and CIC Governor.

@Moomieboo It's a small private MAT for specialist provision, they have a few in our local area (I say private as they don't take on other schools, only their own)

It's a well known deprived area however yes I was surprised to see it was a standalone role for such a small school. Each of their schools has their own DSL who is just that. I'm sure they have things planned to get their moneys worth from me 😅

We use CPOMS to log concerns

About 80% of my job is DSL and tbh I could do with it being 100%. Not a big school at all, but one in a very deprived area (40% of our children are in the most deprived 10% of the country, and we have over 50% PP and FSM, just under 50% SEN and the highest number of EHCPs and children with SWs in the county).

Dont know your demographics @NewJobGoingCrazy but the biggest piece of advice I could give you is to get to know your parents. Know what their issues are, what they need to be successful so they can pass that on to their kids. Make support easy to access. Keep in touch and tell them what is going on and what is out there. Courses, benefits, support services, play schemes, opportunities. I’ve found the more they do for themselves, the more they then do for their children.

Thank you @exLtEveDallas I've been thinking about how to engage with the parents from the start and build a relationship with them. Any tips for engaging well with them?
Any tips on how to find out about benefits etc, I have to admit that's an area I'm not as sure in x

Lots and lots of googling!
Learn the thresholds for certain benefits - the entitled to website is good. Speak to local CAB or food bank and see what their regulars are claiming.
look up your LAs Early Help Offer and create your own around it.
Ask the PTA (if you have one) about what the community is lacking.
speak to your Parent Governor.
Be visible at drop off and collection, acknowledge the kids and the adults.
Ask the kids what is ‘big’ or ‘cool’ or just the best thing they like to do (you may find you need to spend far too much time learning about Roblox/Minecraft/COD/GTA and so on!)

Thank you @exLtEveDallas really appreciate that

The advice about working as a team within school is excellent. I am the Data Manager and often spot anomalies on the school MIS relating to Data. I have a very good working relationship with our DSL as they know if I contact them invitably it is one of the complex families. Make sure your school MIS includes appropriate instructions to staff in a visible place.

My school (1800 secondary) has three full time non-teaching DSLs, I'm one of them. I've just come from a 900 pupil secondary where I was the single non-teaching DSL. I love my job, i feel so valued and like i do a very important job (to the families as well as the school).

Tips:

• Think carefully about the set up of CPOMS categories. Use CPOMS catagory for ongoing monitoring groups of students, not just reporting/responding to concerns.
• Use CPOMS to link the inclusion department, SEND department, Attendance team and Pastoral team - all under one Safeguarding umbrella. So that DSL sees an overview of all departments input in any one child's life.
• Know your LA threshold statements inside out and back to front.
• Consent, consent, consent. It's all very well knowing a family needs help. It's a whole other ball game to get them to accept they need help and consent to it. Keeping children safe is significantly more effective if parents buy-into the process and you all work together. Working in gently getting that consent is the most challenging thing I do.
• Get used to having lots if conversations with children/parents about sexually inappropriate behaviour. Big push by OFSTED. Currently a big thing in all schools, especially secondaries.
• Remember that students with EHCP are equally as vulnerable as CIN/CP/LAC students. Don't assume SEND department are overseeing their wellbeing just because their vulnerability is learning needs rather than Safeguarding.
• know all of the MH referral mechanisms in your area and get to know the admin staff who process referrals. Badger them frequently for updates. Then monitor real-time waiting list times.
• Convince your Head/governors of the value of in-school counsellors. My (state) 1800 pupil secondary has 2 full time therapists and 1 full time "wellbeing mentor" (who sees pupils for lower level MH chats). Their work is invaluable and makes DSL work a lot easier.

Make yourself well known to the support staff, as often they'll have an insight into things that teaching staff don't - for example,

the parents might be verbally belligerent towards them but sweetness and light towards staff they think are important,
they might regularly see the family because they're more likely to live in similar areas due to income (whatever way you look at it, a member of SLT is far less likely to be living on the same estate or using the same bus to get to work than somebody on £16k takehome),
they could see the children outside lessons being completely different (or staff, for that matter),
know that lunch money isn't paid until the 5th time of asking,
know that a child always seems to feel sick just before a particular lesson or seeing one member of staff/when their Dad drops them off,
they could notice the child smells really bad when needing a plaster or seem to be trying to avoid taking their jumper off,
they'll see the children being dropped off and the dynamic between the child and parent/driver,
they might see a child being a bit uncomfortable when being picked up, then have to text and call multiple times to get confirmation of absence, then see something said to the child on drop off the following day that had the child's expression change, or spot a pattern when entering Late marks or checking the registers, spot that a staffmember has overwritten a registration mark, etc. Or somebody - parent, staff, whoever, might just give them the absolute creeps, which is a perfectly valid feeling to have and can be an indicator that maybe there's something they can't quite put their finger on, but is very real.

The other aspect of that is that it's harder to complete a CPOMS entry undisturbed when you're in full view, so they might appreciate the ability to swing by and tell you 'not sure if this is a thing, but...' because it takes 2 minutes rather than 10 of trying to and continually having to switch screens whilst the phone is going and there are urgent things coming in all the time, all to say that they have a feeling something isn't right, rather than a specific disclosure.

In short, support staff can be a very useful set of eyes and ears to all sorts - if they're confident that their feelings are treated as valid as being told something really worrying.

So much good advice here. Can’t emphasise enough the importance of getting yourself known to as many staff as possible. Tempting as it may be sometimes, don’t stay in your office for long periods. Always go and collect children/visitors yourself so your face gets known. Talk to staff face to face where possible rather than using the phone. Use staff room facilities rather than having a kettle in the office. You get the picture…..But don’t overdo it! Just be “around” a lot doing your thing. Definitely don’t do what I did 6 weeks into the job - I fainted in the main office and was looked after and driven home by the lovely office staff. A very quick, but not highly recommend way to get to know your colleagues!

Having said all the above, don’t be afraid to ask staff to follow up minor concerns themselves in the first instance otherwise you’ll get completely overloaded. Things like a conversation at the gate with a parent, a call home, a quiet word with the child, a few days of monitoring in the classroom. Often someone else is best placed to make these lower level enquiries, record and you can then follow up further if needed.