Safeguarding Children Training

[nannynick]

Has anyone had the same amount of trouble as I am having getting Safeguarding Children training done?

I have worked with children for what... 20 years. I have done various courses both online and classroom based over the years. The last classroom based one was in 2005, so I felt it needed to be redone.

I signed up for an Update course specifically aimed at Home Childcarers run on one weekday evening. Great you would think but No. SurreyCC has a policy that says that if you have not done their Introduction course you can't do the update.

So I'll skip a bit of the going around in circles actually trying to establish which course, who ran it, when it was on.

Have now got to the point where I have a list of dates when a suitable Introduction course is being run. It is in a neighbouring local authority area (same county council) so within a reasonable travel distance - I hope... have not yet got full venue details.

The course is only run on specific dates... nothing unusual there. It is run during the day... all dates are weekdays.

Brick Wall - Bang Head.

Luckily I work part-time. Hate to think what anyone in Surrey does who works full-time... how would they ever do the course without taking a day off work.

Anyone else found this problem with courses... or is just Surrey who have this policy?

do you mean a specific safeguarding introduction course? never tried that but I was not allowed to do first aid with LA (in east london) as I hadn't done their childminders intro course first, which they said I couldn;t do until I had sent off my form to get reigistered (voluntary) and only if I was a childminder and not a nanny. Got really muddled with it all in the end and just gave up and did it privately and in the end didn;t need to be registered. spoke to so many people in different places and had to explain to most of them over and over that I was not a childminder.

Yes a specific course only run by a specific training team at the council, early years team who run the update are not allowed to run the introduction. Madness isn't it?

Having registered with Ofsted, I get all sorts of things through from the council, have only just started trying to see if I can actually go on their training courses ... seems like an uphill struggle so far.

Ok well i work in a nursery, so getting the day off would be somewhat easier, but in Herts a lot of the courses are week days, and often they are booked up in the blink of an eye. Also they won't accept more than one or two staff members on the same course so often it can take ages for everyone to get trained in the same course.

I have been on 4 Safeguarding/child protection courses in the last 6 years. 2 were in London and 2 in Wales. Every single one of them has been identical. All the examples they gave were handed out on exactly the same sheets I have at home in a file from the previous course! The only difference between any of them was the number you should ring if you are concerned about a child.

I was a bit when they insisted I go on the course just after I'd moved to a new area, having recently been on it before moving. At the time, I thought maybe it was because I'd changed from Ofsted to CSSIW and the procedures might be different but no, absolutely no difference at all (apart from the number to call). I now have to update it annually and went at the beginning of the year to listen to the same stuff again and be given the same handouts again.

I appreciate that we need to know about safeguarding etc but it'd be far more straightforward if we just re-read the notes we already had and saved ourselves 7 hours on a Saturday.

Sorry, that's turned into a bit of a rant and not really answered your question.

The only difference between any of them was the number you should ring if you are concerned about a child.

I suspect as much... and of course an update course would include any recent changes to local procedures and recap on to whom initial contact is made when reporting something. Bit mad really.

Having been back and forth with shared services (customer services) and training department... I have now got a place on a course... 29 Feb 2012. Daytime. They did run ONE weekend course... it is in March and on the other side of the County from where I live. Seems madness to me that these courses are run mostly on weekday daytime, given that they are aimed at childcare workers (many of whom are childminders, nannies, pre-school workers) who can't simply just take a day off.

Rant away... I do. It is madness. The regulators really should look into what is actually viable for childcare workers to do... how often this training should be done, what level it is done at (there seems to be many levels). Training providers should look at if the course they propose to run is actually suitable for the audience... run on days at times when people can actually attend.

Im in herts too, safe guarding was easy enough to do,
It was my 1st Aid course that was a pain, again either on the otherside of the county or during the week, well HELLO Im a childminder I work during the day.
In the end I did a St Johns one at £114! on a 2 seperate Saturdays, in a diffrent county, luckily only a few miles away.