Low-level concerns
Wellington College began its low-level concerns journey in 2015. All staff were involved in discussions on why low-level concerns were crucial to a safeguarding culture within the school. The discussions were vital in helping staff to understand the rationale and evidence behind implementing the policy. The working groups which were then set up facilitated a sense of ownership and involvement in the process. Several drafts of the policy were tabled with staff for consultation before the final version was presented and accepted by the whole community in September 2016. Back then, the concerns were recorded on a spreadsheet.
Challenges
Being a close boarding community, Delyth believes that one of the challenges of sharing low-level concerns is the potential for staff to have normalised certain behaviours or turn a blind eye to them, so the Wellington College leadership team ensure that they educate staff about these areas in their safeguarding training and in the 1-2-1 new staff inductions.
Other key issues they were facing include having a secure database to log sensitive information and ensuring that there would be an accurate record kept if there was a change in leadership. The risk that the spreadsheet may become corrupted and information lost was also a concern. Delyth also felt that she needed to manipulate the data in a better way which would provide accurate figures and therefore greater analysis by Governors and to also spot trends and patterns which would enable relevant and more targeted ongoing training for staff.
The solution - Confide (now included within MyConcern as the staff safeguarding feature)
At the end of the academic year in 2021, Delyth was aware that the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance was requiring all schools to have a low-level concerns policy. It crystallised Delyth’s thoughts that Wellington College needed to record low-level concerns in a more effective way that removed the challenges they were currently facing. Delyth approached The Safeguarding Company to see if it were possible to have two versions of MyConcern – one for staff and one for students. At this point, Confide had just been rolled out (Confide is now the staff safeguarding feature within MyConcern).
