“Teachers can open the door, but you must enter it yourself”
Welcome to Issue 65 of Quest News. We have 10 hours of off-the-job training for apprentices in care and education to read and learn.
Events of the week
7 - 15 Dec Chanukah (Jewish)
12th - National Workplace Day of Remembrance 2022
Established in 2019, the UK National Workplace Day of Remembrance takes place on December 12th each year. It’s a time to remember everyone who lost their lives at work, whatever their job, whatever their level, whatever their industry – they served and sacrificed in our economy. Show them your respect by stopping work and observing a minute’s silence at 12 noon, and flying the Union flag at half mast for the day..
Approx. 45 mins
Legislation
Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER)
These Regulations (often abbreviated to LOLER) place duties on people and companies who own, operate or have control over lifting equipment. This includes all businesses and organisations whose employees use lifting equipment, whether owned by them or not. In most cases, lifting equipment is also work equipment so the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) will also apply (including inspection and maintenance). All lifting operations involving lifting equipment must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner.
Approx. 45 mins
Video
Video of the week – Reported Missing (BBC TV Programme)
Police mount urgent searches for two vulnerable autistic men. Eighteen-year-old Matthew has missed his usual bus home, while 29-year-old Luke has disappeared from his care home.
Approx. 60 mins
Safeguarding & ED & I
#WakeUpWednesday: What Parents Need to Know about HiPal
A recent study by the Co-Op Foundation reported that 95% of children and young people admitted to occasionally feeling lonely. So it’s easy to understand how networking apps like HiPal – with the tempting lure of bucketloads of cool new people to befriend and interact with online – become hugely successful very quickly if they’re delivered well.
HiPal is indeed a competently assembled app in terms of usability and features – but (with no age verification system and an ineffective reporting tool) it does also sport some glaring omissions from a safeguarding perspective. Trusted adults should check out this week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide for our full profile of this up-and-coming chat app
Approx. 30 mins
Logan Mwangi review sparks government action on safeguarding but no children’s care inquiry
Wales remains only UK nation not to have commissioned review of children's social care, after inquiry into five-year-old's murder finds his voice was not heard by professionals who were lied to by killers
Approx. 30 mins
Not hard to reach: reframing responsibility for accessing services
NSPCC Learning has published the latest in a series of blogs on the importance of the language used in safeguarding and child protection. It explores the challenges around the use of the phrase ‘hard to reach’ and looks at how a change of language can more clearly place the responsibility for service engagement and access on the service providers, not the service users.
Approx. 30 mins
What to Do When a Child Goes Missing - A Toolkit Guide
This time of year, when the nights have completely closed in and a long winter awaits, thinking of those without homes or without support structures comes naturally. For children and young people, to find themselves in such a situation creates unique vulnerability factors. Most notably sexual and criminally motivated abuse. Missing children can often end up in these situations, and according to the National Crime Agency’s 2018/2019 data 75,918 children went long-term missing in a two-year period. This number is likely not an anomaly and as often is the case, prevention is the best medicine. As safeguarding professionals, preventing missing children from becoming long-term cases should be top of the priority list. The moment a child goes missing, their chances of being abused increases exponentially. When this occurs it is tempting to spring blindly into action. But to increase the chance of finding a vulnerable person, before harm can come to them a thorough assessment of the situation is necessary. That’s why the Children’s Society has published its Missing Children Response Assessment Tool.
If you're interested in reading this helpful document please follow the link: https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90245008/Benchmarking-Tool-Missing-Children
To read more about the statistics around missing children please follow the link:
Approx. 40 mins
A Dangerous New Online Trend - Child Abuse Spamming
Today’s pupil is most likely a member of the permanently online generation. Whether in regard to the use of smartphones in class, or social media engagements on school computers, the internet sphere constantly resides in classrooms all over the country. But throughout late November and into December a new trend began to emerge from the internet’s criminal elements. The trend involves paying abusers for every link they distribute to child abuse websites. The objective is to drive people to sex abuse sites in order to increase their internet traffic, in order to take a greater slice of revenue from their consumer base. By increasing awareness of their presence, these sites augment their web presence and become known within the offender community. The danger to the ‘always online’ generation, from accidentally stumbling on such links is great. The consequences might lead the recipient to be ostracised from their peers, be the victim of allegations from others or in the worst case, to become sucked into a cycle of online abuse. The trend is wholly dangerous, and safeguarding personnel should be aware of its presence.
To read the whole article follow the link to the Internet Watch Foundation’s website:
Approx. 30 mins
A Podcast Recommendation - Pixels from A Crime Scene
Pixels from A Crime Scene, is the Internet Watch Foundation’s own podcast. The series tackles the matter of online child sex abuse and the insidious nature by which it spreads on the internet. Their objective is to tackle a difficult subject, but one which safeguarding professionals have to engage in, in order to protect children as best they can. For over 25 years, the Internet Watch Foundation has been attempting to aid child victims of sexual abuse, by recording and analysing its presence. By doing this they aid UK law enforcement bodies to prosecute online sexual abuse perpetrators. Their most recent episode: ‘It can happen in any home’ tackles the danger of unknown sexual exploitation in children’s private spaces, through the computer without their parents knowledge.
To listen to the podcast follow the link: https://www.iwf.org.uk/about-us/why-we-exist/our-podcast/
Approx. 40 mins
Victim Blaming Prevention
The ‘Challenging Victim Blaming Language and Behaviours’ document from the UK Council for Internet Safety, looks at how blaming victims of abuse is counter-productive to protecting children and young people. The guidance comes with three discussion scenarios, as well as a textual discussion as to why such a document is necessary. In its third part it also proposes a code of practice, when dealing with post-event victim care.
To find this document follow the link below:
Approx. 30 mins
Health & Safety
Suicidal ideation
The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH) has released a new podcast episode which looks at the relationship between sleep and suicidal ideation in children and young people and its impact on emotional health.
Approx. 30 mins
Wider Curriculum
Care crisis secrets of The Little Oyster Residential Home, Isle of Sheppey
Businessman Ernie Batten owns the Little Oyster residential home on the Isle of Sheppey and is a worried man. He warned: "I've been in this business for 30 to 40 years and this crisis is unprecedented.
https://bit.ly/3FLBvSv
Approx. 30 mins
‘Failed’ Care Act 2014 must be properly implemented in shift to ‘enabling’ adults’ services, say peers
House of Lords adult social care committee urges funded, long-term plan based on vision of sector promoting 'gloriously ordinary lives', and improved co-production skills for social workers
Approx. 30 mins
Growth in number of asylum-seeking children drives latest rise in care population, show DfE figures
Number of unaccompanied children in care at highest recorded level, sparking council funding concerns and warnings over use of ‘inappropriate’ unregulated placements
Approx. 30 mins
Council’s ‘relentless drive’ to improve children’s experiences helps it shed ‘inadequate’ tag
Inspectors praise Stoke-on-Trent’s improved front door, commitment to permanence and its personal advisers for going “over and above” to support care leavers
Approx. 30 mins
Children with SEND
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have published a joint inspection framework for inspecting local area arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) in England. The inspection framework will apply a multi-disciplinary approach to gathering evidence, by deploying an inspection team that includes education, health and social care inspectors.
Approx. 30 mins
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