Safeguarding Folder - Help!

[holliesmokes]

I hope you ladies can shed some light over this.

We got a call from nursery today saying that they have put notes in our son’s (who just turned 3) safeguarding folder as he has been playing with play doh and cars and said that it was a ‘bomb’.

We asked him a few simple questions at home and immediately understood that he was making ‘car bumps’ as in the speed bumps on the road to slow the cars down. Any additional questions from them would have clarified this.

Is this normal procedure? What does it mean for him/us? I am so upset and angry. Any advice on how to manage this?

It probably means someone has been on Prevent training and got a bit over enthusiastic. I would have a chat with the manager, explain what you have said here, and ask why they feel this is a safeguarding risk.

I work in Early years in a school. I know that at my school a safe guarding concern would be raised and the the DSL would talk to the child and or parents. The outcome would then be recorded. I think you should talk to the nursery tomorrow and explain as you have here.

It’s part of PREVENT counter terrorism. Anything like that has to be documented. No incident is seems to small, although it seems like overkill it’s a valuable way of getting the wider picture.

Unfortunately your child’s words being incorrectly understood means that it will be on file. However it shouldn’t have any consequences for your or your child. That would only happen if your child showed repeated issues discussing bombs or other terrorist speak causing concern. And then further safeguarding checks/referrals may occur.

just speak to the nursery manager tomorrow and tell them he was making bumps, they’ll add a note to his folder and alls good. No need to be upset or angry.

Yes, it's Prevent.

It means nothing for you or for him. It's just something that has to be done because unfortunately people do terrible things to their children and then people say 'why did nobody notice?'.

It's on whatever system they use and hardly anyone can see it.

I think most parents have no idea all of this goes on under the surface all of the time.

Think of it like a jigsaw. All of those little pieces of knowledge can fit together to help a child l,

Thanks for replying! So would they talk to the parents before recording it? I feel like it would have been good to have a conversation and get to the bottom of it before recording it but I don’t know what normal procedure is.

Thank you @PearlHandle

I was talking to a friend who works in Early Years and she was much more dramatic about it, that’s why I panicked. I’ll speak to the nursery tomorrow and clarify it. You hear safeguarding and automatically you think about children being taken away and social services 🙈

Normal procedure.

1. Record the incident of concern
2. Record the conversation with the child
3. Record the conversation with the parent
4. Watch and wait

Then if nothing more happens, no issue. If additional radicalisation concerns arise, they can spot a pattern.

Staff will want to get a feel from you if the language around bomb making is used in the home.

You have to record it as soon as possible so you can do it as accurately as you can. It's all done factually. What actually was said not what your opinion is,or anything like that.

It would muddy the waters so to speak if you talked to the parents first. Then you would be in danger of recording what they said happened.

You can add on to the same incident later with any other information.

There's really no cause to be upset and angry. This is common safeguarding procedure followed correctly. They will have been told that if in any doubt at all record incidents because sometimes these can form a bigger picture over time.
In this case your child appeared to make bombs out of playdough, they recorded it, asked you and you explained it..,all good!

Thank you everyone. Your replies helped me a lot and I’m so glad I did a bit of research before talking to the nursery. Everyone in the school and early years sector is working so hard and are doing such an important job, they don’t need angry parents complaining when all they are doing is following procedures and doing their job 😜🙈

I must have died an woken up in a matrix. Counter terrorism for a 3 year old? Prevent? a 16 year old perhaps, a 3 year old? This is ridiculous, and what is more worrying is that pps think it is all sooo normal. Shivers.

It's not the child who might be a terrorist you loop. Try to think things through.

It's quite shocking that anyone would be against safeguarding children.

I had to fill in all manner of tiresome forms for Prevent this year.
Because, having retired a few years ago, I was doing an evening class.
I get that the intention is to get educational establishments to keep an eye out for harmful radicalisation of the vulnerable.
The application seems to be very thorough...!

So how many children have spoken about bombs and it's been led to discovering some terrorist activities? I would love to know! Not being goady

I'd get more shivers if I lived somewhere with no safeguarding.

When I started teaching logging small incidents in CPOMS et al wasn't a thing. There wasn't an option of building up a picture, you just had to wait until it was too late.

In my first teaching job straight out of university one of the children in my year four class was being raped by her stepfather every Thursday night whilst her mum was at aqua aerobics. Afterwards, lots of other things came out that had happened. He'd been drunk at home times. The younger sister would cry when it was just him to collect her etc. Too much to list here. Nobody had spotted a pattern or put any of this together until it was too late.

Alot of awful people have children. The child can then be exposed to terrible things, it's our job to look out for signs and safeguard them.

Well if he did say he's making a bomb then where has it come from? Maybe his parents older siblings seen/heard them talking about it. It's prevent terrorism hence it needing reporting off course its not aimed at the 3 year old!!

Ok, so I have been told by nursery that they are not allowed to ask any additional questions so they don’t influence the answer. 3 year olds are not the best at communicating, clear pronunciation or anything really. I don’t understand how you are not allowed to check if what you understood was right and what the child is actually talking about? Like if the word you think you heard is what the child meant.

It still makes me feel uneasy to be honest, as a parent. Now I question everything we say around the house and wonder how it can be (mis)interpreted 🙈 Hopefully it will pass with time..

Is this common, do lots of children get notes like these in their safeguarding folder?

I must have died an woken up in a matrix. Counter terrorism for a 3 year old? Prevent? a 16 year old perhaps, a 3 year old? This is ridiculous, and what is more worrying is that pps think it is all sooo normal. Shivers.

Er... try thinking it through ..... 3 yr olds are loked after by {insert answer} ?

If that were what the 3 yr old were witnessing in the home, then it would be very concerning. In the same way as if a child was casually mentioning heroin, or even weed. Or they were mentioning machetes. Or re-enacting scenes from an X rated film or gaming characters.

There are inserts into safeguarding files for all sorts of things. I get the impression you are taking this as personal judgement on you? It really isn't. Please don't feel worried or uneasy about it. This is just the education sector doing what the government insist they do.

Thank you! No, I’m sure it’s not judgement on me, it’s more the fact that it came so out of the blue and unexpected that it just makes my brain be on guard for other unexpected things. I think when you work in this sector you are so used to it and it doesn’t seem like a big deal at all, whereas for us parents it can be quite shocking the first time 😄 I would never blame the educators, if anything I would blame the government 😜

I don’t understand how you are not allowed to check if what you understood was right and what the child is actually talking about? Like if the word you think you heard is what the child meant.

You can ask questions but you can't say 'did you say bomb?' because that's leading them.

You could say 'what does it do?' Or 'where were you?' or something like that and everything might become clear but with a three year old they are just as likely to answer 'grandma is taking me to the beach' or 'I saw a bee'.

You can't harangue them into answering you.

Some people who work in early years settings aren't properly trained unfortunately and nobody is likely to be a child psychologist or anything.

The system has to be the way that it is to make sure that people aren't chasing round after toddlers saying 'tell me more about this bomb Sebastian. Who do you think daddy wants to kill with the bomb he was making? Sebastian? Sebastian?'

Instead they go on their own to the computer and enter some data. They can't read anything that was there before unless they have safeguarding responsibilities.

They write something like

'at the play-doh table today Sebastian said that he was making a bomb. I asked him what he was making it for and he said so that all of the cars go bang. Then another child came over and asked Sebastian if he wanted to play outside'