Does anyone work in Safeguarding?

[sunnyjune]

I'm after a job in Safeguarding!

I have a first class honours degree in Early Years and Childhood Studies and am a nursery nurse in a private day nursery.

Over the last 7/8 months I've become quite involved with one of my key children and their family who have gone from early help to child in need to child protection. I've dealt with the whole case from the nursery's side of things in terms of attending all of the core groups and the ICPC and have learnt so much.

I've realised that I really, really enjoy it and would love to work in Safeguarding in a nursery or school. I've looked online every day for about 3 weeks and just can't find any 'junior' roles in Safeguarding. Do they exist? I have seen a few DSL jobs for large primary schools but I just feel that I would be totally not ready for that yet and most of them (rightly so!) require previous experience in the same role.

How do I get in!? I feel like the answer will be that people teach for a while first and then go into a safeguarding role from there. I do not have QTS, and atm have no huge desire to teach.

I think my ideal role would be one under a DSL/Safeguarding manager at a nursery or school to gain experience of the role and learn the job, but I have a feeling this isn't an actual thing! I'm also only 21 and look quite young which doesn't really work well in my favour.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

I’ve never seen these jobs advertised except at Senior Leadership level and even then it would be as part of a bigger role. Thankfully, most educational settings don’t have enough safeguarding issues to warrant a full time safeguarding officer.

You might be better looking for ‘pastoral’ roles in schools, those are usually admin posts (ie you don’t need to be a teacher) or finding out where your local Safeguarding Hub is (I believe every local authority should have one) and seeing what jobs they have on offer. Sure Start centres often deal with families at risk too so look there.

Volunteering at somewhere like childline or Homestart might also be beneficial.

Good luck.

Look for jobs in pastoral support in schools in TES. Those people often get safeguarding training and our senior pastoral support woman is now not directly junior to the DSL. She loves her job.

ps you'd be snapped up for pastoral support with your experience!

Thank you so much! It sounds silly but I hadn't even thought of pastoral support roles!

Go via a pastoral role. I have gained safeguarding exp in one.

what about social work? Or would that mean too much time out training? Do you want to remain working in an educational setting?

There are actually full time safeguarding officers in LAs : very important and highly paid jobs : but you would very much need to work your way up to that via social care or , less commonly, teaching . The fact that you already have a degree means you are in some ways over qualified for a typical school PSO, but it does sound like a job you'd enjoy, be able to get some further qualifications , and training/ responsibility and then go form there. Our PSOs are now safeguarding officers and several are trained counsellors. I think secondary PSO will give you a bigger range of experiences and opportunities .

There are other routes too via Health Visiting teams and within hospitals.

Yes I have looked into social work, I don't really think that's what I want to do though🙁

@Piggywaspushed yeah I know, I'm working as part of a multi disciplinary team at the mo with a fantastic safeguarding lead at a primary school. She is brilliant and I'd love to do her job in the future! I'm just unsure of how to get in in order to work my way up to that.

I would love to be a health visitor! It's something I've looked into a lot. The health visitor who is working on this CP case is lovely and has spoke to me loads about her job, she's kind of taken me under her wing abit. I'd have to qualify as a nurse or midwife first and then do a years extra training year after some experience. I'd love to do that, I always wanted to go into midwifery but didn't because I was kind of pressured into uni by my sixth form college before I properly knew what I wanted to do and now of course the NHS bursaries have stopped and I'm too poor to fund it myself.

Thanks all! Definitely looking into pastoral roles, and yes I'd prefer to stay in early years/primary. Secondary really isn't for me!

🙄

In my city the Health Visitors have early years practicioners that work alongside them with their own caseload.

@123bananas are they Community Nursery Nurses? A health visitor I work with has mentioned this to me but I've looked online and on nhs jobs etc and can't see anything! I'm sure she said they are usually band 4 positions.

I wonder if this is everywhere or just some places? Are you in the NW?

I am in the Midlands. Sometimes they are called community nursery nurses. If you put early years or nursery nurse into the search on nhs jobs they come up.

I do actually know someone who has a full time safeguarding job in a primary school-unfortunately this is because it is in a very deprived area with at least 40% of the children having complex additional needs.
Not for the faint hearted or those without bags of experience as well. Maybe you could see if you can shadow someone but you will need extra training I suspect

I work as a full time DSL in a secondary school and I absolutely love it. I did an Education Studies degree but had no desire to teach. However my school is SEMH which is why they need me- most schools make members of SLT DSPs.

Feel free to message me for more details- don't want to give away too much on here!

I work for a Diocese, based in a City, and they have a small Safeguarding Team, which includes a junior member.

How about a Family Support Worker at a Children's Centre. They do the early help work but if the status is escalated they do stay involved.

Thanks Betty I will PM you in a sec!

@OpposableThumbs2 I almost applied for a job as an early help worker but think I would prefer to be based in a school or nursery.

I think becoming DSL at my current setting would be a big help but we already have one and 2 deputies so there really isn't any need☹️