Safeguarding and Child Protection is at the core of the work that Southern Adolescent Care Services undertakes.
Our experience is that many of our young people come to us with risk taking behaviours or lacking the knowledge and skills to keep themselves safe.
Our safeguarding aims are:
Southern Adolescent Care Services focuses on safeguarding at all times and recognise that there are many areas covered by this topic; some of our available policies are listed below:
We have over the years developed both staff training programmes and education programmes for the young people themselves to address not only the current trends, but also those areas of risk that are always present.
Some examples of the work we have developed more recently:
Child Sexual Exploitation
Research has shown that many looked after children are susceptible to development exploitative relationships and are winngly ready to accept these are the norm. We offer an educational programme for young people in regard to healthy and non healthy relationships, how to recognise when one is exploitive and also incorporating what is child sexual exploitation. We have developed links with other specialist agencies as well as have staff who are specifically trained in this area.
Results from this work with young people has shown an increase in their knowledge and understanding, an improvement in positive responses to relationships and a growth in confidence, leading to healthier positive relationships.
Many young people struggle in their interactions with others and have experienced bullying in one form or another.
Addressing bullying by working with both bully and victim using restorative approaches has provided a positive strategy in addressing the issue and building confidence and resilience
Resilience is at the core of young people being able to manage life and its challenges.
Developing resilience is a core theme throughout all the work we do with the young people.
One of the chapters in our in depth Life Skills programme focuses on this area so that the young people themselves can understand the benefits of developing this skill.
In a world that has become extremely digital, educating young people on E-Safety has become a prominent feature of our educational programmes.
Managers have undertaken training with CEOP, and have trained our staff so that they are aware and able to educate our young people on E-Safety
There are an increasing number of cases of online safety being reported on in the media and through CEOP bulletins, which is why we equip all with the knowledge and understanding of how to stay safe online.
Research has shown that Looked after Children are more susceptible to ending up in the criminal justice system than other young people.
We engaged in a multi agency forum whereby a protocol was developed to reduce prosecution.
Beyond this, we have continued to work on this area and have developed a training programme for staff on alternative ways of dealing with behaviours that could constitute criminal actions. These new strategies have been proving very successful with both staff and young people.
