Best practice in the case of a revelation by a child

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I work with under-11s across several educational settings. I am not a qualified teacher.

If a child tells you that they are trans, or have concerns regarding trans issues, what would best practice be?

You need Transgender Trend. They have produced a school pack. I will try to link.

I apologise for my crappy ' unable to copy links' phone. Try www.transgendertrend.com I hope that works.

Listen, let them tell their story in their own words. Ask who else they've told.
As with any disclosure of sensitive personal information, you should listen without judgement. Minimise any response from you - this is about their information, not your reaction (if that makes sense?) Thank them for sharing this with you and (ideally) tell them that you'll be sharing the information with xxx. You should then share the information as part of your pastoral / safeguarding responsibilities with the appropriate member of staff. They will be in a position to assess the information and to guide what happens next.
If anyone tells you that you should keep the information confidential (as GIRES for example states) do not do this. Individual members of staff are not in a position to risk assess and may not have critical background information about a child. This advice is from adults seeing things from an adult perspective and fails to take account of safeguarding / pastoral good practice in schools

There may be safeguarding issues, although this may not be the case. However, it will fall under the school's pastoral care guidance and adults in schools must always follow school policies to protect children from harm and themselves from allegations of 'failing to follow' school procedures.

Yes, sceptical sums it up well. If a child makes a disclosure you basically just have to tell the child protection officer.

Yes, sceptical sums it up well. If a child makes a disclosure you basically just have to tell the child protection officer.

If you work in any capacity with children and you do not know this, you must ask for safeguarding training immediately. Everybody in every setting needs to be crystal clear on the pathway for reporting, as much to protect yourself as well as the child. Most staff do this through either their qualification course (e.g. TAs doing CACHE) or INSET as a refresher, I've had it also as part of a specialist role and delivered directly by a head teacher on starting a new job. Local councils often have courses, or your nearest FE college. It's not usually more than a day session but you absolutely need it.

Talk to your union rep asap if there's any problem geting the training (even if you're not in a union, reps will be happy to help). And get hold of your school's safeguarding policy. Most schools have them on the school website, I believe it's a requirement.

As far as I'm concerned any disclosure on the subject should be treated as a safeguarding issue and passed up the chain in the first instance, purely because we know these things are so often co-morbid with other mental illnesses, influenced by age-inappropriate internet use, or there's bullying involved. So pretty much way above the pay grade of anyone but the CPO.

Thanks for the advice.

I have had safeguarding training, so my instinct would be to listen receptively and report upwards. I just wanted to double-check whether trans issues would trigger anything different. They certainly haven't been mentioned in any of the trainings I have done.

OP,
Trans is not likely to be in the safeguarding training - just as eating disorders, self harm, mental health etc are not specifically mentioned. But all of these issues must be referred when you become aware of them. They contribute to the picture of the whole child and ensure that problems don't get missed.The worry is the separate 'trans' training that lobby groups are pushing in schools, some of which directly contradicts safeguarding principles.

listening to the young person and informing the relivent person who is trained to deal with issues like this within the orginasation.