Talk to me about self harm and safeguarding

[PinkStickleBrick]

I'm looking at keeping children safe in education and I'm surprised self harm is not mentioned at all. So if as a member of staff you was aware of a child always having one arm covered, there is no pity or duty in safeguarding to investigate this?

1 arm covered is the same as a scratch on the face, bruise, looking hungry at arrival at school. They are all signs of concern.

Of course their is a duty to report. It’s a cause for concern.

And self harm is mentioned. I’ve just looked. The first mention of self harm in KCSIE that I’ve found is on page 13. I cannot believe it’s the only mention.

i remember when i was at school, one girl aged about 13 used a razor blade to make a criss-cross pattern of light cuts, barely more than scratches, on her forearm.
just because she liked the pattern.
and was probably a bit bored, being at boarding school.
there was a bit of a stir when her mother found out.
but it made me wonder, does that still happen, that kids do it for artistic reasons, so might be misunderstood as self harm.

Yes it is a safe guarding concern, and certainly should be reported and logged. It should then trigger a conversation with the mental health lead, who should then risk assess and referred to appropriate services.

Thanks for the reply. It's deep cuts more than just superficial. I can't see it on page 13? If I search the doc for 'self harm' it returns no results. What am.i doing wrong?

It's not 'artistic reasons' or 'being a bit bored' if they are carving it into their own body - however 'light' the marks.

Presumably they had access to art materials to 'express' themselves - the fact that they chose to self-harm instead is an indication that something is wrong

@PinkStickleBrick , don't ask how I found this but it's in the 2021 version in Part 1 on page 13, I've attached a photo, it's quite hard to find on the internet as it defaults to the 2022 version that has a different heading.

I'm not a self harm expert but from what I do know, it's not for artistic reasons, the pain of cutting is a form release and it helps some self harmers to relax. It's the pain aspect and seeing the blood released which is why counselors advise to use elastic bands to snap back on wrists to mimic that sharp initial pain.

Thanks for that screen shot. It was the hyphen sp? I was missing up.

How strange self harm isn't a concern in its own right? Just a possible indication of violence? Not all self harmers are being abused. But if your mental health is low, your cutting surely it can't be OK? You'd wonder why it's happening and where its leading too? KCSIE isn't as clear as I had hoped.

Sigma33, but it was not self-harm in that case.
i knew her, she was in my class and dorm.
and no we didn't have access to artistic materials, but anyway that would have been different. she didn't draw on walls either, or want to scribble in exercise books or even rough book.
i don;t see it as much different from people wanting tattoos.

Each school should have its own self harm policy from what I remember.

I run an education centre but it's not mainstream so slightly different in that i follow organisational guidance rather than education board guidance. We would recognise self harm or any harmful body focused repetitive behaviour as a safeguarding concern and it would be recorded and forwarded to CP officer and the young persons guardians made aware. However we wouldn't do a new report for every instance of self harm if it's a known ongoing issue and the young person is receiving support for it unless we need to administer first aid or the self harm itself happens on site. It would just be noted in their daily record. In our area all mainstream schools are linked to a designated charity for self harm intervention work so a referral would also usually be made there. Our young people have more complex needs so receive slightly different specialised support although we've referred to the same charity in the past.

Mental health concerns are clearly safeguarding concerns, and the KCSIE document is a bit weird because it says things like "if you have a mental health concern that is also a safeguarding concern..."

A school ought to take self harm of this kind very seriously, but if they're not, I don't think KCSIE is the right document, really.

Self harm is a safeguarding concern. It doesn't mean school staff should investigate though.
Staff should report their concerns, the designated safeguarding lead should follow safeguarding procedures and seek appropriate advice and guidance.

Part 1 of KCSIE 2022 says that safeguarding includes: preventing the impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
And
Any staff member who has any concerns about a child’s welfare should follow
the processes set out in paragraphs 51-67. Staff should expect to support social workers and other agencies following any referral.

It also says staff should consider mental health needs as reasons to refer to early help.

There is also a section on mental health:
Mental Health

45. All staff should be aware that mental health problems can, in some cases, be an
indicator that a child has suffered or is at risk of suffering abuse, neglect or exploitation.

46. Only appropriately trained professionals should attempt to make a diagnosis of a
mental health problem. Education staff, however, are well placed to observe children day-to-day and identify those whose behaviour suggests that they may be experiencing a mental health problem or be at risk of developing one. Schools and colleges can access a range of advice to help them identify children in need of extra mental health support, this includes working with external agencies.

^47. If staff have a mental health concern about a child that is also a safeguarding
concern, immediate action should be taken, following their child protection policy, and
speaking to the designated safeguarding lead or a deputy.^

I'd say it's fairly clear what the safeguarding procedures should be for self harm.

Then you don’t know anything about self harm or tattoos

Thanks. It's amazing really it doesn't implicitly say self harm here. One arm covered up constantly. No call home to the parent about why. No call from.MASH so can't belive it ever hit the dsl radar

@PinkStickleBrick Along with what the Pp has said staff may also receive separate training on self harm.

Whilst this may be massively personal and a big deal for you unfortunately self-harm is massively common in High School, for some it's a real cry for help, for others it's social contagion, and for the most badly affected its a silent secret they carry with them.

Form teachers, class teachers and support staff will flag it as a Notice of Concern for the Pastoral and Safeguarding teams to follow up on. I have flagged up the exact scenario that you have mentioned in the past. In some schools these same teams will be dealing with children who have experienced SA, DV, ODd or caused serious self harm whilst at school plus working through all of the alerts sent to them through the online system.

Ofcourse safeguarding children and supporting good mental health is also a team effort, if an arm was covered up all the time did the parents notice and contact the school or GP with their concerns? If the young persons behaviour had changed did they contact the pastoral team member to flag it up so that the child could be kept an eye on and was specifically on the safeguarding teams radar?

I'm trying to support another mum in this. We think he child has been failed for other reasons. But trying to gather a picture of how behaviours and mental health have visibly spiraled and had a blind eye turned. School has not followed their own behaviour policy here so wondering what else wasn't followed.

Unfortunately I think it's been easier to say the child is a bad kid so what do you expect attitude rather than, troubled child, how can we support.

The child must have been on safeguarding radar because there was another incidents.

@PinkStickleBrick that sounds tough, behaviour and mental health appears to be spiralling amongst teens in the country.

You could do a request for all info held on the DC under the data protection act which might help in your case.

Yes a carefully worded FOI about all exclusions ( that was inhihdsight never officail, there never followed up - school policy is that children have reintegration meetings after exclusion- never happened. Child heard a teacher flag up the covered arm to senior staff but nothing happened etc).

Think there has possibly been a special case for this child to not follow policy, or maybe its wider issue.

One arm covered up constantly. - Is this the only warning sign you feel the school has missed?

If so, I do think it's a little bit of a grey area, especially depending on the uniform available etc.

I get that there are other issues, but I'm not sure chasing this specific one is the right thing to do.

No it's not just this one thing. Say MASH are called, then there's no more mention at school. No working with the parent. Duty done, MASH called. Schools job done. That's one repeated example. Teacher flagging up one covered arm in lesson but no follow up. No call to mum, no call from MASH. Mum hasn't chased as this has been the culture of the relationship. Illegal exculsions ( from I can make out). No follow up.

So just a pattern of 'what a naughty kid, have an exclusion tick along until the next exclusion' but all the time there's on going concerns but it's never dealt with out side of the exclusions.

Of course I'm not directly involved, im hearingeverythingsecond hand, but my child has told me that the pupils have been told something alarming by a SMT in front of of two member of senior staff and the mere fact they felt comfortable saying such thingsinnfront of other staff leads me to to think it's not a great safeguarding culture.

Incident that obviously warrants CP or police they call up MASH lower level stuff they turn a blind eye to as its gray area.

I have it drummed into me that you do not decide, you do not investigate, you flag everything up the chain. So where is this going wrong? Staff not flagging? Or the deputy and or dsl not doing their duty? It's relevant as the child is an extremely bad place right now.

Has mum been in contact with the governors?

If the schools own policy hasn't been followed then you can put I'm a complaint to OFSTED, they are hot on SEN and Safeguarding atm.

Mum has started complaints. First it went to the head who stood firm. He didn't tell mum the next step if she was unhappy with his desision. Next it's the governors.

I am not sure why the school are at fault if they didn't know about the self harming. I assume the mum didn't either. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. After discovering the self harm, people might then think of yes she also had her cardi on, but why would they make that connection before?