Prelims

Half Title Page

Understanding Safeguarding for Children and Their Educational Experiences

Title Page

Understanding Safeguarding for Children and Their Educational Experiences

A Guide for Students, ECTs and School Support Staff

Edited by

Dr William McGovern

Northumbria University, UK

Dr Aidan Gillespie

Northumbria University, UK

And

Dr Helen Woodley

Northumbria University, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2022

Editorial matter and selection © 2022 William McGovern, Aidan Gillespie and Helen Woodley.

Individual chapters © 2022 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80262-710-7 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-709-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-711-4 (Epub)

Dedication

For my children, Demi, Riley, Oscar and Henry, for their love and inspiration

About the Editors

Dr William McGovern is a Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Early Years Studies at Northumbria University in Newcastle. William has 14 years of professional practice in the fields of children and adult substance use and mental health and has been a Senior Lecturer for over 10 years. He has published as a lead author and in work with others in the fields of Public Health and Social Care; he has also edited a collection of work on the concepts of Stigma, Identity and Substance Use. Much of his applied research work focuses on the needs and experiences of vulnerable groups, for whom substance use and mental health problems are prevalent: families and edge of care services; children leaving care; vulnerable birth mothers who have repeat care proceedings and victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.

Dr Aidan Gillespie is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Northumbria University. His research is focussed on Spirituality, Religion and Society, and Religious Education/Religion and Worldviews. He is programme lead for the Professional Doctorate programme.

Dr Helen Woodley is a Senior Lecturer in Children and Young People's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP-IAPT) at Northumbria University. In her former career she was a teacher, and her roles included working in special educational needs settings and as a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) in an Alternative Provision school. Helen's research often focusses on topics around mental health and wellbeing. Her current research interests include the effectiveness of a whole school approach to wellbeing, and the impact of school cultures on both staff and pupils. Her publication Toxic Schools (2018) looks at the impact of school culture on teaching staff. Helen also has an interest in autoethnography and how this methodological approach can be used to gain a more detailed understanding of the experiences of those working in education.

About the Contributors

Dr Hayley Alderson is a Senior Research Associate for the North East North Cumbria Applied Research Collaboration/Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University and is an Embedded Researcher within Children and Families Social Care within the UK. Her research has a strong focus upon translational research which is driven by a commitment to improving outcomes for vulnerable children and families. Dr Alderson's work to date has been conducted in or has closely aligned with social care settings, inclusive of social work teams and seeks to benefit highly vulnerable populations such as families on the edge of care, children in care/care leavers, individuals experiencing intimate partner violence and abuse and substance misusing parents and their children.

Dr Lucy Currie is a Senior Lecturer in Education and a programme leader in Postgraduate Work Based Learning and the National Award for Special Education Needs and Disability Co-ordinators (SENDCos) at Northumbria University Newcastle. Lucy's career in education started in secondary schools in Zimbabwe, Botswana and the United Kingdom where she has lived and worked for the past 20 years, progressing from teaching in schools, to Further Education and Higher Education. In that time Lucy's professional interests have grown to encompass concepts of Professional Learning, Higher Education Pedagogies and Inclusive Practice. Her research interests are in Education, girlhoods and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa, Inclusion and HE pedagogy. Her latest publication examines challenges of academic writing for professional learners, entitled Praxis: Underpinning Practice with Theory in Professional Learning.

Dr Tom Disney is a Social Geographer and Senior Lecturer in Childhood Studies at Northumbria University in the Department of Social Work, Education & Community Wellbeing. His research centres on families and children experiencing interventions of the state, exploring how these interventions break or facilitate cycles of marginalisation. He has conducted research on residential care settings for children, child protection practice and participatory research to improve local authority Early Help service provision for families.

Catherine Fenwick is a Primary Teacher currently working at Yohden Primary School, Horden. She has over 15 years of teaching experience gained in primary schools across the North East of England based predominantly in areas of low socioeconomic status.

Charmaine Agius Ferrante, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Education, Children and Young People, at Northumbria University. She is currently the Director of Education for Undergraduate Programmes in the Department of Social work, Education and Community Wellbeing. She is a Senior Teaching Fellow HEA and the Programme Lead for BA Childhood and Early Years Studies. She is a consultant developmental educationist and has advised policy around inclusive education in Malta, where she was involved in supporting the development and provision of inclusive practice. Her research interests are policy and practices of inclusion. Research themes include early intervention, developmental education, creating spaces and places for all children, sexuality and relationships in young disabled people. She is a committed advocate for inclusive education, assisting parents, individuals, schools and communities to work towards building inclusive communities of Practice.

Pamela Louise Graham is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing at Northumbria University. Pam is interested in poverty, food insecurity and inclusion and has carried out a wealth of research investigating the impacts of school and community food interventions on various outcomes for children and families. Before her PhD, Pam spent time working within primary and secondary education taking on Learning Support and Social Inclusion roles. She also spent time volunteering as a mentor for Barnardo's.

Cathy Gunning is an education coach, mentor and aspiring attuned teacher. Her extensive work in education has focussed in primary and specialising in early education and care from birth to seven. Her teaching and leadership roles cross a variety of sectors, which include being a teacher, local authority adviser and head teacher. She is passionate about advocating for children who need to be known and who may not be heard or seen: those who are considered ‘vulnerable’ or who would benefit from teaching and learning through an ‘attuned pedagogy’.

Dr Ralph Leighton is now semi-retired, currently an Associate Lecturer at both Canterbury Christ Church University and Glasgow University. He was previously principal lecturer at Canterbury, where he established the PGCE in Citizenship and had been programme director of the secondary PGCE. His background is in sociology and politics, both of which he taught in Kent schools for 22 years before his 20-year involvement in higher education. He has published widely regarding both citizenship and initial teacher education, concerned primarily with the lack of attention paid to the real experiences of young people as they themselves perceive them. Much of his research addresses the potential – and the urgent need – for citizenship education to be an empowering force for change and social justice.

Professor Raghu Lingam is Professor in Paediatric Population Health at the University of New South Wales, Honorary Professor at the Black Dog Institute and a Consultant Community Paediatrician in the Sydney Children's Hospital Network. He has set up and leads the Population Child Health Research group at UNSW and co-leads of the Kids to Adults clinical academic group as part of Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE). Raghu is a senior clinical academic with clinical and research interests in children and young people's health services research. His expertise is in the development and evaluation of health services interventions that are evaluated at scale; he has run randomised controlled trials in Australia, UK, India, Pakistan, Uganda and Mozambique.

Dr Jenny Lloyd is Assistant Professor in Sociology at Durham University. As a member of the Contextual Safeguarding team her research focusses on extra-familial harm to young people during adolescence. Employing embedded research methods Jenny works alongside practitioners to improve responses to harm including serious youth violence, child criminal exploitation and child sexual abuse. Jenny leads the education strand of the Contextual Safeguarding team, is a consultant for Council of International Schools and a member of the International Taskforce for Child Protection.

Rachel Lofthouse is Professor of Teacher Education at Leeds Beckett University and founder of CollectivED The Centre for Coaching, Mentoring and Professional Learning. She has worked in education for 30 years and has maintained a keen interest in understanding and enabling professional learning at all career stages and across education sectors. She has a specific research expertise in mentoring and coaching and has regularly published in this area for 20 years. Rachel collaborates in European projects with a focus on professional learning for inclusive education.

Dr Ruth McGovern is a Lecturer in Public Health Research at Population Health Science Institute, Newcastle University. Ruth has a background in social work, and her research interests include the development and evaluation of behaviour change interventions to support the health and social wellbeing of vulnerable children and families.

Dr Alison McInnes is a registered social worker and academic. She previously worked as a social worker in mental health and the drug and alcohol fields. She is Director of Transnational Education and an Associate Professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and Programme Manager for the Childhood and Early Years Studies and the Guidance and Counselling franchise degree programmes in Singapore. She is Co-Chair of the Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee (JUCSWEC), International Committee. Her research interests include international social work, alcohol, young people and drinking games and the myths surrounding ageing, and she has published extensively in these areas. She has worked overseas as a Social Work Consultant and taught extensively in Tajikistan, Singapore, the United States and across mainland Europe.

Alison Ní Charraighe is a Senior Lecturer on the Childhood and Early Years Programme at Northumbria University. She has an MA in Women's Studies and an MSc in Youth Work with Community Development Work. She worked for 17 years in Youth Work practice and Management and is a member of the Institute for Youth Work. Her current research interests are in resilience and youth work, and youth work as a therapeutic practice. She is currently completing training as a Counsellor with young people.

David Nichol joined Northumbria as an academic in 2006 and most recently has been programme lead for Northumbria's Post Compulsory Education and Training provision. David also teaches on the MA Education routes and leads a module on the Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice, a programme aimed at all new academic staff at Northumbria and, in collaboration with colleagues, delivers teacher training programmes to Post Graduate Research students who express an interest in perusing an academic career. David's research interests include academic development within the fields of new, innovative teaching and learning strategies and pedagogy, examining how these can be used to support both the creation and development of communities of practice with his learners. Further interests include the use of technology enhanced learning opportunities to develop enriched learning activities for blended learning, eLearning and distance learning delivery. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education academy.

Deborah Smart is a Research Assistant in the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University with a research interest in the health and social care needs of vulnerable children, young people and families, their experiences of accessing services, and interventions that can provide support and offer opportunities. Prior to becoming a researcher, Deborah gained 13 years of experience in the community and voluntary sector, developing, delivering and managing interventions and services to young carers and their families in North East England.

Neil Ventress comes from a background of almost 30 years of work with children and their families as a social worker, manager and inter-agency trainer. He has qualifications in teaching, management, a Master's Degree in Social Work Studies, and the GSCC Advanced Award in Social Work. After leaving local authority children's services Neil enjoyed five years as a Senior Lecturer at Teesside University, where he led and taught on various undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Neil has retired from his subsequent career as an independent trainer and consultant but has continued to research and write about safeguarding children. His specific interest is helping children and young people to overcome the inevitable and frequently underestimated consequences resulting from any form of abuse, exploitation or neglect.

List of Contributors

Foreword

Teachers, school management teams and school support staff have a duty and moral obligation to identify and respond to Safeguarding concerns and to support and protect children in their care. Reading about Safeguarding, what it is, what it entails and how it should be responded to in educational contexts is a relatively easy concern. Understanding how children end up in positions of vulnerability in the first place, the nature of Safeguarding risks and concerns and how to enhance pupil engagement and teaching practice in relation to Safeguarding is far more difficult. In developing and organising this edited collection we seek to provide a resource that supports you in learning about these latter types of concerns but also complements the wider endeavours of schools, universities, trainee teachers/ECTs and school support staff in relation to understanding and meeting the needs of pupils who may be vulnerable or at risk of safeguarding concerns. In preparing this collection we have made no assumptions about your prior knowledge, but we do recognise that if you are new to this subject area or teaching, then you may feel a little overwhelmed by the volume of concerns that are contained in this collection and the implications of them. Please do not be! If you are simply ‘visiting’ the ‘collection’, then you will quickly realise that each and every chapter has something to offer in terms of increasing your knowledge and understanding of Safeguarding. If you are stopping with us and reading the ‘collection’ in an ‘in-depth’ way (we hope this is the case), then you will undoubtably have a far more comprehensive insight. All we ask you to do from here is to reflect on what you read and issues raised here in relation to your role, how you teach and how you engage with children. We also encourage you to go find ‘space’ in your practice to have conversations with your colleagues and children when relevant about your practice, your perspectives and the ways in which your understanding informs your practice and the quality of your teaching in relation to Safeguarding.

William, Aidan and Helen