For most children, the summer holidays are an opportunity to spend quality time with friends and family and should be for fun and relaxation. For other children, this time of year can be incredibly stressful as they can be exposed to an increased level of risk at home and can feel isolated and vulnerable. Some of the pre-existing issues they might already be facing such as abuse, neglect, violence and mental health can be exacerbated during this time.
This can be difficult from a safeguarding perspective as without local authorities, schools and other settings having efficient, secure ways to share information, the impact of these challenges on children and any concerns around their wellbeing during the holidays are likely to go unnoticed. Not having daily face-to-face contact with pupils during the holidays also means that teachers and safeguarding leads are unable to spot even the smallest of concerns around their wellbeing and are therefore unable to make any necessary interventions if they don’t receive the information about students with who they are working with.
To ensure that vulnerable children don’t fall through the gaps during the summer holidays, a joined-up approach to safeguarding involving multi-agency collaboration is vital.
Why is multi-agency collaboration important?
Multi-agency collaboration involves safeguarding partners including schools and local authorities working together to promote the wellbeing of a child. It promotes a thorough, joined-up approach to safeguarding and helps organisations that work with children to join the dots through information sharing and take action to prevent children from being overlooked. This can help with earlier identification of risk and ultimately improve safeguarding standards.
In its report on multi-agency information sharing, the Department for Education highlights that a holistic approach to safeguarding – where information is shared between agencies – is the best way to ensure that children receive timely and appropriate support. It states that this is also vital for achieving the best possible outcomes for each child.
Multi-agency collaboration plays a crucial role in the safeguarding of children and helps to:
- Provide a joined-up, child-centred approach to safeguarding by prioritising open and continuous communication between schools, local authorities and other agencies.
- Provide schools and local authorities with the visibility to understand a child’s situation from different perspectives, helping to create a full picture of each child’s circumstances and needs.
- Remove barriers to information sharing such as time and unnecessary processes, helping children to receive timely and efficient support.
Why is children’s safeguarding so crucial during the summer holidays?
The safeguarding of children is important all year round, but it is particularly crucial over the summer holidays when children are at an increased level of risk when at home, and when monitoring concerns around children’s safeguarding can become difficult.
Neglect, domestic violence and exploitation are just some of the challenges that can be heightened for children during the summer holidays. The NSPCC recently reported that there is an increase in calls made to their helpline about children being left alone during the months of July and August. It also named neglect as being the top concern during its helpline sessions across the last year with more than 40% mentioning a child being unsupervised during the holidays.
As a result of the cost-of-living crisis putting extra financial strain on families, the charity has raised concerns about the number of parents struggling to balance work and the costs of childcare, which is having an impact on the number of vulnerable children being left alone for long periods. The NSPCC and Barnardo’s have also raised concerns over a potential surge in online abuse and exploitation over the summer holidays. A survey conducted by Barnardo’s on 729 children found that 71% were likely to spend more time online during the holidays than during term time while 8% alarmingly revealed that they will meet up with people they have only ever met online this summer – putting them at increased risk of exploitation.
Almost 140,000 children live in a home where domestic abuse takes place. For children in these circumstances, being away from school means that teachers can’t pick up on any changes in their behaviour or log incidences or concerns relating to their wellbeing, meaning there is a greater risk for these children to fall through the gaps.
The Department for Education’s improving multi-agency information sharing report – which outlines the barriers that practitioners working with children and their families face when sharing safeguarding information – revealed that poor information sharing is often cited in reviews following the death or serious injury of a child. With children being at an increased risk of several challenges that could impact their wellbeing during the holidays, it is vital that schools, agencies and organisations working with children communicate with each other and share information about students with whom they are both working in a secure and timely manner.
How can safeguarding software help with multi-agency collaboration?
Safeguarding software like CPOMS Engage can help to aid multi-agency collaboration between schools, local authorities and agencies, helping to ensure they are joined-up in their approach to safeguarding,
The software simplifies the sharing of sensitive pupil chronologies and streamlines safeguarding processes when a child attends multiple schools or is under the care of teams in social care, the virtual school, children missing education (CME), elective home education (EHE), or work-related learning. Safeguarding, child protection, pastoral and welfare information can be shared swiftly and securely across settings via a CPOMS Share Contract. Local Authorities can also provide direct visibility of domestic abuse incidents received from Police.
When a share contract is in place, teachers will be able to log into the software after the holidays and see the relevant safeguarding, child protection, pastoral and welfare information about the students in their care, quickly getting up to speed to be able to provide the appropriate supports.
To find out more about CPOMS software, book a free demo.
