Teach Middle East Podcast
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Teach Middle East Podcast
Why Every Child Deserves a Champion in School With Zoubiya Ahmed and Priya Mitchell
A profound discussion on the importance of safeguarding in education unfolds at the Middle East School Leadership Conference ( MESLC) with Zoubiya Ahmed and Priya Mitchell, highlighting how legacy and relationships between educators and students can shape a safe, nurturing environment. Our guest's experience showcases how collaborative efforts empower both educators and students.
- Exploring the theme of safeguarding as a fundamental aspect of education
- Building relationships and trust between educators and students
- The role of empowering educators in promoting effective safeguarding practices
- Addressing the challenges and cultural nuances in safeguarding
- Creating a culture of care in schools
- Reflecting on legacy and the importance of ongoing training and support
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Guest hosted by Zoubiya Ahmed
Connect with Zoubiya at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoubiya/
Connect with Priya Mitchell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-mitchell-pmcsafeguarding/?originalSubdomain=ae
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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson
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Hi Priya, hi Priya, how are you today? I'm doing great. We're at the Middle East School Leadership Conference on day two. We are indeed, and the theme of the conference is Building a Leadership Legacy, leading Forward. Yes, I would love to understand from you what that conference theme of leadership legacy, building it and then leading forward. What does that mean to you as someone who is known, renowned for safeguarding and leading? Safeguarding, yeah, it's. It's interesting thinking about it and how it aligns with where my career path has gone over the last year or so. So I should be working in schools in the middle east as a dsl and counselor and as part of that, I created counselling groups. I created designated safeguarding league groups and the legacy from that is that, even though I left Abu Dhabi 2021, those groups are still going, which is wonderful to see because, listening to Fiona earlier on about legacies, it's about what you're building and that it's when you're no longer there that there's still something there that has been started. So it's amazing to see those two groups are still going.
Speaker 1:And when I came back to the Middle East, one of the things I really wanted to do is say, okay, I can work in a school and I can look after the wellbeing needs, safeguarding needs of, say, 1,900, 2,000 students. But I want to do more than that. I want to be able to go out and empower as many adults as possible, to upskill them around wellbeing, around safeguarding, so that what I'm able to do is build that legacy of safeguarding across the UA. So it's not about, okay, I was in one particular school and that's the legacy that has been left behind because I was there as a DSL. It's about what can I do to upskill as many adults as possible so that we're all creating a legacy safeguarding. What I'm hearing from you is that if the landscape is a safe and safe and genuinely caring, yeah, and protected landscape, yeah, and all the schools are on that landscape. Rather than a land view, you took a more aerial view. It's exactly what you're trying to do with safeguarding.
Speaker 1:Yes, I just want to go back to the point you made about the groups you created. It might be that there's somebody who's watching or listening, who wants to know what made you start those groups and how did you? How, because there's a legacy there how did those groups? Firstly, what was the point of the groups? And then, how did you create a system that made those groups last. Okay, so when I arrived in 2013, there were counsellors beginning to be employed in schools, but it felt very much like you were on your own and I was like, why are we doing this on our own? Surely we should be working as a group and looking at challenges that that students are facing in schools together. And that's where it started. So I spoke to a counsellor at another school and I was like, why don't we do this? Yeah, why don't we? 12 round a table, and it's now 70, maybe plus counselors, specialist professional learning, community and creating a network.
Speaker 1:When you had your first meeting, was it awkward or how was it gosh? I'm really having to think back now with that memory was Was there hurdles to be overcome, overstepped, trust-wise? No, I think there was this need for people wanting that sense of belonging which, again, when we talk about safeguarding that sense of belonging of, oh, we're all doing this, we're all in our silos, what can we do together to build on each other's and share good practice? There was an appetite for one person thinking in their school I can't be the only one that this is important to and the other person coming together so when those that it was organic, almost start talking about absolutely pressing issues, absolutely. And then the same thing happened with the safeguarding, because when I came, redeemer's law wasn't a thing and happened whening. It was a bit of a hit and miss, which I think in some ways it still is, depending on what school you're in. So again it was out of.
Speaker 1:So ADEC had provided this training for a child protection lead per school and there was a group of us I still remember. So it was a group of us and it was like the naughty table in the classroom where we were all sat there and we were all very established safeguarding people. The majority of people around that table were teachers in like senior leadership positions, and I was a social worker from the UK, as I said, working as a DSL and counsellor, and at the end of it we we got on really well, but it was. It's a really lovely memory actually of something that I did very early on, of being in the UAE, and at the end of it I was like why don't we have? We need a group, we need to be sharing good practice, and that's where the seed was planted.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's done enough in the UAE or could it be done better, what seeds being planted or groups, both that people have take the initiative to take a risk, because reaching out to another practitioner from another school sometimes, and especially in 2013 I was also here in the uae at that time it was sometimes treacherous because there is a bit of a competition between schools, so it's do. Are we exposing our practices or exposing incidents to our competitors? Would that be used against us or something? There's like a whole mindset. Absolutely, and I think what worked in my favor is my head head teacher at that time at the school I was working in really got past all in and safeguarding and he said competition needs to be on the sports field, not when we're talking about student wellbeing, student safeguarding and he 100% backed me. I said go on, go and do this. I think it's integrity that it needs to underpin before we think about the business side of schools, for safeguarding and wellbeing, business should not be involved. We should not be talking about money around.
Speaker 1:Safeguarding, like Emily was saying earlier on, it is a culture. It's more than a tick box. It's more than compliance. We need to have that culture of care in every school so that children feel safe. Children feel safe If they feel that they've got someone they can talk to. The teaching and learning is always going to be better. The achievement of that child is going to be better. The achievement of that child is going to be better. It underpins everything that happens in a school. We have to have safeguarding at the highest possible level that it can be so bringing people together. They've got that same kind of mindset who want to.
Speaker 1:So people out there who maybe want to be part of these groups, they need to get involved in these groups because safeguarding is it's. It's highly emotive, it's. If you're, if you're safeguarding lead, you can be left feeling really drained and also confidentiality aspect of it means that you're sometimes carrying heavy burdens of sometimes tricky, disturbing, confusing situations and sometimes you're not able to talk to everybody about it and it can weigh heavy absolutely. And one of the things that we've been trying to push, especially like with bsme, is that reflective supervision piece for dsls so that they have that monthly space to themselves schools I think school leadership haven't quite got on board with why that's important. So having these kind of peer groups at least provide some form of support in terms of sharing good practice and I'm like we're having these problems in our school, what's happening in your school and sharing that that works for us. Have you tried that? So it's at least DSLs are getting some kind of input and support within that role and again, that's the legacy that we're building.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a bit of a controversial question? Oh, please, do we like controversy? We do, when we are working for a private school, yeah, when we're working with entities that maybe have we're one branch out of numerous schools that exist in lots of different countries, sometimes the school's group has a centralized safeguarding policy which is based on a certain country or their own understanding of it. Yeah, and then there are the regulators in each country. That's their own set and there's a lot of work that needs to be done to align maybe a company or organizational safeguarding practice to one school. And often, if there's more than one school within a group in one country, sometimes even those are not aligned in practice. Yeah, how much do you think there's enough energy and intention and effort and money put into making sure safeguarding is on top of every agenda? I think that a lot of what is done is a tick box exercise. So schools will have a policy. It's written fine, but is it a lived policy.
Speaker 1:I also think that often I hear the this is what the regulator wants us to do and I'm like but is it child-centred? Is this child-centred? At the end of the day, when we're doing safeguarding, the child needs to remain at the middle of all of the decisions that are being made. It's not about a regulator. It's not about the branding of the school. It's not about oh, what will our parents say. It's about what is best for that particular child, which is why it can't be black or white safeguarding. There's no black or white. Sometimes it's very grey and you have to find a path through it. That is the best way forward, which is why you need dsls who've got integrity, who've got a voice, who are going to be a bit of a pain, who are going to challenge. So all of those people. Actually, that's the point I was trying to press on that sometimes your dsls are not going to say things to you as a leader who has got a wide lens view of the whole organization, of the bottom line pressure, of the teaching, parent engagement. We've got professional development I was talking to of the importance of impact and outcomes. But the umbrella over all of that is safeguarding in the legislation requirements of the children in our care, which is bigger than all of that, yes. So, yes, your safeguarding leave might be a pain, but they are a pain because it's the umbrella over everything. How much heat have you seen safeguarding leaves get globally, nationally? So we come back to who should be in a DSL role.
Speaker 1:Okay, and it's very clear, the UK guidance, the DAA in Abu Dhabi you know the statutory guidance around there is that the lead, whether it's a DSL, cpc, whatever we want to call them, should never be the principal. Why? Because of that reason, there should always be somebody who can challenge the person at the top of the tree in that particular school. If they aren't doing their job, somebody needs to be able to challenge them. When that sounds some way, you could get crushed. Oh, rock and a hard, absolutely, as you're standing for the highest standards of safety, aligned to the regulator requirements. And then you've got, maybe, a principal who's saying come back next week because I can't meet about that. I'm dealing with a visitor, or actually. No, this is what I need to do and no, this is the way it's going to do.
Speaker 1:I'm principal also like feeling like you've been overridden, even though you're standing for the expectations. Yeah, and it's a hard one. The controversy around that is it's a hard one because people that are DSLs we're all out here on a is. It's a hard one because people that are DSLs we're all out there on a contract. It's sometimes a difficult position where they feel that safeguarding is maybe not where it needs to be and you're challenging, say, the principal Is it worth your job? Is it worth your job? And I was saying, ultimately, as a DSL, you are the advocate for the most vulnerable child in the school. So if you're not going to use your voice as that advocate to ensure that the safeguarding practice is as it should be, and you aren't making sure that that child is being safeguarded, then what is the point of you being in that role Off camera we were talking about, if it's not good for my child?
Speaker 1:Yes, and can you dictate that story of what happened and what you did and what you did next? Could you dictate that to a judge and feel proud of the actions you took? And could you say, 20 years down the line, if you met that child and they narrate their experience of school and said I was terribly bullied, this happened and you were the person who could have done something about it, could you face that person with the actions you took? And maybe that's the base as to why I work as I do when I do child protection in schools, because ultimately I come at it from a social work background. I did child protection in London for 11 years, frontline. I had those very challenging conversations with parents. I had those. The things I have seen and witnessed are things we don't want to see and witness.
Speaker 1:We both also touched on the fact that we've worked at some of the challenging, the most challenging boroughs and the most challenging and disadvantaged situations. That being said, just like your point, affluent neglect and some of the issues that come with, yes, the difference between, say, the UK and the challenges in certain areas there, but also the challenges of working in the Middle East, where affluence doesn't necessarily equate to safe it's safe, it's not knife crime type of issues, and the issues that arise are sometimes more subtle and nuanced for you to find the true issue, and also the taboos of the culture for whistleblowing, taboos of the culture for speaking up about gender specific and issues related to girls' bodies and boys' bodies. There's a lot more subtle things that a DSL has to look out for to do their job well here. And there's an additional one as well when we look at the DEI, if we look at international schools, there is a real gap in how we are safeguarding children of colour. That's because, unfortunately, there is a lack of culture nuance guarding children of color. That's because, unfortunately, there is a lack of culture nuance, that understanding of culture and of how children of color necessarily that the safeguarding isn't seen. You may not see a physical symptoms of, you know, physical abuse. They may be different some cases in some family and cultural circumstances. Safeguard, the lack of safeguarding, is normalized In some cultures, some cultures. So I think one of the interesting things of working within the UAE Not intentionally, it's because of a lack of knowledge.
Speaker 1:So you know one of the things that I have found increasingly when I've been working in the UAE and I've been doing lots of work in government schools, which is another whole case in itself and a lot of the time when you're talking to parents. So it is a lack of understanding because we parent based on how we were parenting, unless somebody tells us different. So I could be an analogy. I'm a 70s child from Indian heritage Shocking, and I talk about running away from that Indian leather slipper. Either or Either, or we laugh. We laugh. That was our experience being parented. But as a parent, I've never touched my child. But if they, I've not even smacked my children because by the time I was a parent I had been educated that there are other, far more positive ways of instilling boundaries and discipline. So if we look at some of the families that we work with, they haven't had that opportunity to learn other ways. Is that something that you are focusing on? Yes, it is. So I'm launched. I have launched two parent programs and ones for parents who've got under fives to look at how do we connect with our children emotional regulation, sleep pattern, picky eating, temper tantrums so that's one of the things. And the second one, which is aimed more at schools, is for parents of kind of 3 to 18-year-olds in school setting, looking at brain development and adolescent risk-taking, behaviour and discipline strategies, all of those kind of things that parents.
Speaker 1:Because over here one of the things about expats is that we're not living in our home environment, so we haven't got that natural support system that we would have, so it can feel quite lonely at times. People have friends. You feel isolated from a wider culture. That includes those where you know you can reach out to the go to your gp and they can refer you to a community center. With here, the awareness of where to go might not be as clear. The pathways are not as clear, true, but there's another stuff into it. If you think about when, when, when you're living at home with your supports, people that have no news that you're a tiny, there's, that you don't fear that judgment of okay, I'm really struggling with my son, daughter, they're doing this, that and the other. You would go to your mum or yourie or your best mate down the road because you don't want them to know that you've got a relationship, exactly because you're not going to feel judged, whereas here we may have friends, but it's not the same level of friendship. So are you going to talk to the person that you go out? It's the transient and that's a real gap that I think is missing, which is why, now, I've launched these parent programs, because it's for people to come together as a community. That's what we're trying to do. The legacy we're trying to build is building a community where people can come to our parenting sessions. It's a six-week course and through that six weeks. They're gonna. They're gonna meet other people and they're going to build more supportive network around.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of parents who maybe feel that if they speak up about the fact that they don't know that they are a bad parent and providing opportunities, where there is an opportunity to pretend something, if the commitment's there without the blame which I think is important for parents to feel that they're heard by the opportunity being available for them to come, and it's that non-judgmental what we're trying to feel, that they're heard by the opportunity being available for them to come, and it's that non-judgmental what we're trying to do is we're trying to support you as a parent. We all struggle at times with our children. It's parenting's not easy, you don't. It's not like you get a car manual with it and you just get on with it. Each child is different your eldest child, your middle child to youngest child.
Speaker 1:I think also, having the fact that there's a session, it subliminally tells parents that you're not the only one, not the only one, not the only one, which is a really important thing, absolutely. I would like for us to talk about and I interrupted you you were about to tell me about how do you make sure safeguarding is less checklist-y? Yeah, so I talk about the culture of care in a school and I talk about how do we keep safeguarding the agenda, reminding people in morning meetings curriculum that we have in the school, making sure that children know who they can go and talk to as child protection team, as the DSL, when I used to work in schools, a lot of the time my office would be situated in, say, the secondary school. So what I would do is I would make very conscious effort of going over to the primary school and spending time in the primary school, going and reading this really good safeguarding books that you can use. Storybook safeguarding driven do story times.
Speaker 1:I at one point I was coaching the under nine netball netball team, which was that was totally stepping outside of my country. So and but I could do a coaching for under nines. But you know, when you've got girls doing cartwheels and you're like no, no, it's not gym classes. But why did I do it? I did it because it was about building relationships with children, so that if there was an issue with a nine-year-old and I had to go in and talk to them about it, I was at some strange adult who doesn't really work. In my part of the school it was arts, prayer and and what was really lovely. And that's one more opportunity for them to think of you as that one adult that they can trust. Yes, and that's what it's about and I keep saying this every time I'm working with adults and delivering training the most important thing is relationship building.
Speaker 1:If you've got a relationship so if you're a form, um, I say in secondary school, you've got your form tutor time every morning, you'll see that child every single day at the same time every morning you were if you've got that relationship with a child, you will notice the subtle changes in them. You, hopefully, are that trusted person. So you know, oh, you look really tired this morning, late night, last night. They may not say anything to you but they may Because they're like, oh, you noticed, they feel seen, they feel heard Someone's noticing Exactly. It makes all the difference. Makes all the difference.
Speaker 1:I must say my own experience of being someone who was given a little bit of care from the safeguarding team when I was younger, it did make a huge difference in my what we would say my approach to so I was quite academic, yeah, but it could have crashed me. It could have made me just completely withdraw what I was facing and that support with that trusted adult made all the difference for me to know that, no matter what's going on, I can say something to that person. So I think people educators often underestimate how important it is for young people to see them. Yeah, absolutely, anyone who's watched that really appears and everyone, every child needs a champion. Every time I watch it I'm like bang on, she's absolutely right. Child needs and you know, luckily, the majority of children have mom and dad as their champion.
Speaker 1:There are those children that come into school and school is maybe the only place that they feel safe and having that member of staff that they can go to and talk about whatever is so important, because it may be that they want to come and talk to you about. I don't know, the hamster's not very happy today, but before you know it, that hamster story has turned into something a bit more significant in terms of a safe part of a well-being issue. So spending that time with children there are subtle signs that can be missed. Yes, and I think that level of care that you talk about, that culture of care, if it's checklisting rather than really focused on the needs of children, empathetic and caring an individual. Things are missed and things will be missed, even with the best, absolutely best possible safeguarding practices there will always be.
Speaker 1:For us to think that we are fully robust in that space of confidence that we do everything, I think can be a trap for leaders that, oh, our safeguarding is brilliant, we've got it in place and everything's in place. I think sometimes that can lead to a degree not of complacency, but this false sense of security that you have done everything, although, no, it gives a sense of it wouldn't happen here, but it does happen here, it happens everywhere. Think the unthinkable, because it does. It may be a teacher in a school that is harming a child, oh, but that wouldn't happen here. Yeah, it does happen, it does happen. That's why we have low-level concern policies, why we have allegations against staff policies, why we have code of conduct, because it could happen here or that whole, oh, but they're a really lovely pair, they can do that.
Speaker 1:But I think there's also the the fact of reputation management, that if we do something about it, it means it exists, yeah, so if it exists, that lowers the tone of the place. Yes, and we are. Maybe we are outstanding or we are very good or we are whatever we are and anything that reflects that we are not. That lowers the tone of the place and I think we need to separate performance ratings and safeguarding. Safeguarding is either we're meeting the needs of all children for that or we're not and we need to do that better and you could flip it.
Speaker 1:So, if I flip it in terms of branding, if I, as a parent, thinking of school A, if I know that actually they've got this well-being really good, well-being really good, safeguarding their policies and procedures that are in place, and that if I know if the child is being hurt, that actually x, y and z happens in that school, surely I'm going to be more likely to send my child to that school because it means, if god forbid, something's happening to my child, actually the school's really proactive. Yeah, they're not going to sweep it under the carpet and my child isn't going to continue to be hurt. So it's about reframing. Yeah, I think that reframing is a really important word, that when you reframe a malpractice to being on the steps, to being best practice, rather than either you're great or you're awful, yeah, that that stops people feeling that it's personal to them and then they feel that, okay, I am gonna try, I'm gonna do this better, rather than I'm either good or bad and safeguarding safeguarding can never be like, oh, we're done, yeah, we're at the top level because things keep changing.
Speaker 1:So ai, for instance, ai even three years ago wasn't a safeguarding machine the way it is now. I read the story recently about the boy who was speaking to ai at all and it talked him into self-harm and it's a powerful video that I saw, I showed during when I deliver safeguarding. It's a very powerful video and it's made out of this real case scenarios and you watch it and you just go, whoa, okay, because it. Ai is amazing for so many different reasons, but it's also got a very dark side to it. Who's writing the programs? What for are they writing it? So people get addicted to these technologies. Is there a there? There are so many unscrupulous reasons why someone would want children to be hooked on their technology to make them customers for life, for example, and reframe their thinking about products and services for marketing reasons. So, as you said, it's never constant. Everything has.
Speaker 1:Every innovation has a safeguarding implication and if we sit back and think, we've got it covered, I think because safeguarding should be at the top of every gender-based meeting and that we need to be having a dialogue about it with every level of leader and educator and wider providers. We talked about off-camera that there are some blind spots within the school community where we're worried about safeguarding of the teachers and we take steps for that. We take steps for, maybe, lunch supervisors. Maybe we don't. Do we take precautions and provide training to ECA providers? Do we look at providing a provision of safeguarding training and an alignment of practice and language as well? Because every adult or peer that the child will meet, yes, and it doesn't take too many questions, as in the evaluative work, we do two or three questions of a little bit of a dive in and sometimes we get blank looks of we didn't think of that yet. Yeah, and that can be cause for concern. Absolutely, for regulators and evaluators to come in.
Speaker 1:So I think you would say the same. Right, I would say the same and I'm smiling because I think as an inspector, you may do a straw poll of the member of staff, oh, who should do this out, and you would hope that they would know that. But I think about when I go in and I do training and I talk about that very first exercise I do is around values and beliefs, because within our international schools we have people from all over the world who have very different values and beliefs around safeguarding. And also definitions, where we say protection, where we say care, depending on who's thought of it. Even amongst people who speak the same language and from the same place, they might be defined differently by person. So having a school definition or a regulator definition that's embedded, it starts there. It does everyone. Like you're right, everyone has to have that common understanding.
Speaker 1:So if I come from, maybe my values and beliefs are that, oh, it's okay to smack a child, hit a child. If a child says to me they were hit last night, am I going to see it as safe cards, because my values and beliefs may be that aren't, so it's okay for them. Yeah, I survived. Yeah, yeah, I survived it. Why are they making fast? But actually you're in the uae, you're a mandated reporter. This is the expectation of from government legislation the whole way through. This is how it's going to be.
Speaker 1:I've also seen, when I've been out to schools in the over the years, sometimes what's seen as playful camaraderie or banter culturally, and I've seen this sometimes in sports teams and stuff like that, where there's this sort of touching and tapping and I've seen children look quite uncomfortable with it, but they think that they have to go along with it, else they're not part of the in-group of the team. And then, because the teachers or the instructors don't have the training to see that the child's uncomfortable, they almost want the child to conform to that norm, instead of changing the norm of everyone else to ensure that everyone is comfortable with banter and playful touching or oh, how are you doing? Kind of thing, and that they just look visibly uncomfortable, sensitive. Yeah, you're making a farce. Yeah, yes, and that I think also happens within school environments where maybe for staff the staff while we're using at the kind of peak level that it should be at, and where maybe there are staff who feel that they haven't got a voice when they are not being treated or included and don't feel like they belong, or there are maybe banter in the staff room or people make comments and like you're being too touchy. You're being too touchy, you're far too sensitive, but it didn't really mean that. And oh, that's just the way management are, you just have to get used to it, or there's a conversation of do you think I should report it? How many times are you going to report it? You're going to be reporting all day long because nothing ever changes. Yeah, yes. So it's really difficult, I think, to go through these moral dilemmas all day long and I think, starting with the culture of your organization, to say, no, we do care. Our aim is to know about these things. I think the workload aspect is what puts people off as humans. There's that workload. If I report it, fill in the form, I fill in the form, I've got to write the email. If I've got to write the email, then there'll be a reply and then I might have to go and that's cutting from my time. So I think that whole human experience of work can prevent you Not to say you don't care about safeguarding. You do, but that voice of that colleague who told you in the staff room that nothing's going to change prevents you from doing it. But also, safeguarding is.
Speaker 1:More often we think about safeguarding in terms of child protection. Safeguarding it's about the proactive, it's about what we do within a school. So it's also about the safeguarding of the adults that are working in a school and making sure that our teachers, our cleaners, our security guards, every single adult in that school, feels safe. I think it starts with psychological safety, absolutely for anything else. So when we're talking about is safeguarding a tick box exercise? It can't be tick box exercise because if your staff don't feel safe, psychologically safe, are they going to spot the child? Don't feel safe, psychologically safe, are they going to spot a child where there's a second concern probably not now, because they've got their own, or significantly less likely to. Yeah, and even if they did spot it, what's the odds of them being proactive on it when they themselves feel that their job's on the line if they do say something, or that, if I say something, I might be ridiculed by someone who finds out that and that's a mechanism to make me not report it. I might be frozen out of the group. But oh, she's a troublemaker. Yeah, yeah, just because it's her, we have to now attend training. Yeah, there's a little bit, that's true. Um, it's true. Yeah, I'd like to move on to.
Speaker 1:We've talked about problems, challenges, talked about what doesn't go right. I'd like you to share a moment in your in, in your practice. Something about safeguarding has made you really proud to help inspire those who who may need to be inspired to do the right thing. Yeah, and I think it's about. For me, what's made me proud is working in schools, where people having those conversations, those professional conversations, and changing the way that we do things in a school that's what makes me proud, because that's about the learning journey that we're all on, and one of the things I learned personally very early on as a DSL was you know, I would come in and I'd go out and there's a bit of an ego thing going on.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm the social worker, I'm the one with countless years of child protection experience. Therefore, I know everything and realizing that actually safeguarding and child protection within a school is working within that team and realizing that sort of I don't have to have the challenging conversation with the parent. I can get their teacher to do it, because actually the message is going to be received better in terms of a personal pride, being able to reflect and go. Well, this isn't about me, it's about the child. So that's a personal but from a professional point of view, bringing those colleagues together and looking at how do we work as a team around a child. So implementing what we have in the uk in terms of working together framework and bringing it into a school and looking at okay, actually, you've got a nurse in a school, you've got your counselor, you've got your teacherssellor, you've got your teachers there are so many actually different professions within a school and specialisms, exactly, let's bring them together and let's look at how we do safeguarding so that it is everyone's responsibility, everyone's responsibility. But what does that actually mean? What does that look like in your daily life, in your school and that's been one of my proudest moments is looking at how schools that I've either worked in or I'm going in and supporting and helping now, how they're safe to develop. I think it's that concept of threads coming together to make that fabric oh, yes, like a tapestry, obviously guarding and it's not one thread to make a tapestry All those practitioners coming together to make any kind of fabric that is durable, safe for use.
Speaker 1:Lastly, which aspects of a school's culture would you most want to persist beyond your tenure? So you've worked in child protection, safeguarding and social work and supporting that. Whenever you are in those roles, what do you want to remain in the school that you've worked? Positive relationships, like we were saying earlier. That is the key to all of that. Safeguarding well-being, academic achievement, you know what I'd like to say. So helping staff within school again, it doesn't matter what member of staff you are, but helping them to have those skills of active listening, forming positive relationships with children, would you say, because it's.
Speaker 1:I've heard this word. I've had relationships come up a lot. Now when I hear something come up a lot, it Now when I hear something come up a lot, it makes me think. Is it not happening correctly? Is it not happening that people keep repeating the word, so, like when you just said active listening, are we saying that we're not listening better or we're not listening enough? Is that what we're saying? I think sometimes we listen, but we listen to solve the problem, as opposed to let's listen to what the child's telling us, or we're listening selectively, based on our experience of work or based on I've only got five minutes and I don't really want the child to tell me something that's going to make me have to go away and do CPOMS referral and then a follow-up with the GSL and add and Okay. So you mean slow down, stop, breathe, breathe.
Speaker 1:Focus on empathetically and carefully listening and noticing what the child needs and what they are saying and what they may also be saying and we're noting down facts, but we're also sharing insight of what we feel might be the case, and it may not be a safeguarding disclosure. It may be that at that moment in time, the child's just, for whatever reason, they're not, they're not happy, for whatever reason. Maybe it doesn't need to be a sin. Yeah, it might be inconsequential. What they're telling you just be their experience of life and something, maybe silly, yeah, and relate it to something they've read like from a book or they've heard overheard from someone else and they just want some attention. Could be that, yeah, even that attention is part of positive relationships, and so I always like so.
Speaker 1:When I used to work with parents, one of the bits of advice I give them is about communication and relationship building with your child. But you know, when you've got your little ones in primary school, you have a little one and you know, and then pick them up from school and you're trying to get dinner on and you're trying to do all of those things you need to do of an evening and they want to talk to you about something that is inconsequential for you in your big life but for them, whatever's happened during that day is huge for them and actually, if you spend that time just giving them that bit of that time of yours, they talk about it. What you're doing is giving them a message that you will listen. Fast forward that 10 years when they're a teenager and you really want to know what's going on in their lives and they're shutting down because they're a teenager. Yeah, and they tried before. They tried before. It didn't work. Either you were looking at a phone or they were busy, or you were busy providing the finances. Whatever it is, the school or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:But if you, from the time that you know you've got them little, if you're having that communication with them, it's around the things that aren't important to you but are very important to them. When they really do need to talk to you about something that is important, they will. Yeah, the channel is reinforced, it's open. It's been open all of their childhood, so it will remain open. And it's the same theory when we look at staff in the school. If you are able to just talk to the child about something that isn't sinister, it's not safeguarding, it's not well-being, it's just they want to tell you what I don't know about. Yesterday they saw stray cats in in the street and they fed it. Whatever, it doesn't matter. But if you spend the time and you allow that child to be heard and valued when that child's got an issue, you're going to be maybe one of those trusted people. So that's why I talk about active listening, about forming a relationship with a child, relationships. A relationship means lots of different things to lots of different people, but those positive relationships where you're trusted and you're seen as somebody who will listen, that's how we're going to have that safeguarding culture and that culture of care in school. For me.
Speaker 1:I actually, when someone says relationship to me, I actually think of an actual ship being created, so like constructing a ship. So when we first meet, it's a plank of wood yes, that won't survive the sea. And then the next time we meet we're adding it becomes like a makeshift raft. And then the next time we meet, it becomes like a little tiny boat, it's true, but it can sort of float. Maybe we'd survive in it, maybe not. Maybe the relationship would survive if we stood in it or not. And the more we interact it reinforces that actual ship. So true, and then it can survive a storm. So when there is an issue, yeah, it can not only float, yeah, but we'll communicate to survive and thrive in that ship. So when people use words like relation and ship, what have you done to create the ship? Because if we love this, if we haven't interacted enough, I don't know. There's no planks. So, true, just a plank. It's just two names. It's wayward. Your two names that will come together.
Speaker 1:And, yes, if I think about my personal relationships and our professional relationships, absolutely you bang on. It's about the interactions and those interactions is where you find the alignment and the trustfulness we had. Professor rob co earlier talking about trust is not just a word. There's dimensions to us and similarly, when we build anything, there's dimensions to when we build something. And if we just think that just saying hello and get on with your work is a relationship, it's not. Or we're saying how's it going and then we quickly move on. That's not a relationship.
Speaker 1:And I think the crunchiest time, because everyone who's watching is thinking, oh, that's all well and good, but I've got, I only have two ppa. There's ppa periods across my week. If I give every child that personal touch or first class service, I will not be able to plan my lessons. So I think having some sort of system where it's distributed across numerous members of staff, you don't feel the weight of the world. And it goes back to your point about specialists, everybody's responsibility and having a system for well-being and a system for students and children understanding who they can go to, but also everyone caring and when that happens across the day. And we think about the touch points where every child is the main character of their story and this video.
Speaker 1:If I started my day and I'm walking into school right camera, point of view camera. We walk into school, how many times do I feel cared for throughout the day? And if it's too few, then would we say safeguarding in that school is robust, would we. And if we are seeing a thread we said of this practitioner asking me about am I okay, then another one. I might start asking myself if I'm okay and be able to potentially self-regulate or muster the courage to speak up about the problem, because I've had three people Maybe I'm too shy, but the second, third and fourth across that I then think, okay, the next person who asks me, I'm actually going to tell them and I think that's the part that we're talking about that might be missing to ensure that safeguarding is focused on each child because they are the main character of their own child in the center of the child that we do. Yeah, thank you so much. Really enjoyed the conversation. We've gone on a little bit longer than I.
