Safeguarding

Stockland Green School holds the safety, health, wellbeing and welfare of its students as paramount. We are committed to safeguarding and work together to ensure that our students thrive in a safe and supportive environment, whatever their age, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual identity or gender. We place high expectations on all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment. All staff receive regular training in relevant Safeguarding and Child Protection issues and are kept up to date with changes in legislation and practice.

The school is proactive in its work with outside agencies to safeguard children and young people, any intervention and support is timely and right for individuals and families. The school works with external organisations to promote safeguarding themes within the school. These themes are also promoted through the curriculum, pastoral systems and assemblies. We place a high emphasis on developing positive behaviour which contributes to learners feeling safe.

We are dedicated to ensuring that children and young people are valued, respected, listened to and taken seriously especially with regard to their safety and wellbeing. The school encourage young people to report concerns and we endeavour to provide support while encouraging individuals to adapt safe and responsible practices. As part of this commitment we have become a Unicef UK Rights Respecting School. Please see our Rights Respecting page for more information.

The school has a team of designated safeguarding leads who have undertaken appropriate safeguarding training along with all members of the Leadership Team.

Stockland Green Protecting Students form Significant Harm

SGS Safeguarding Policy

Designated Safeguarding Lead Team

Young Carers Support

Who is a young carer?

A young carer is a child or young adult who spends time looking after and helping a member of their family, or a close friend, with everyday tasks they can no longer manage because of illness or disability. A network of local independent charities provides support to carers and the people they care for.

Young carers may look after parents, care for a brother or sister, or another family member. The average age of a young carer is 12 and they take on responsibilities normally only expected of an adult.

If you are a child, and think you could be a young carer, or you are a parent and you think your child is a young carer, please speak to Miss Shakespeare – Young Carers Lead at Stockland Green School for more information on the support available on 0121 566 4300.

Young Carers Research:

• 27% of young carers (aged 11–15) miss school or experience educational difficulties (40% where children care for a relative with drug or alcohol problems) (Dearden, C, Becker, S, 2004).
• A quarter of young carers said they were bullied at school because of their caring role (Sempik, J & Becker, S, 2013).
• They are more likely than the national average not to be in education, employment, or training (NEET) between 16 and 19 (The Children’s Society, 2013).
• Although young carers need extra support, they are no more likely to find it from statutory agencies than other children (The Children’s Society, 2013).
• They have significantly lower educational attainment at GCSE level – the difference between nine Cs and nine Ds (The Children’s Society, 2013).

Additional support for young carers:

Young carers advice – Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust

Birmingham Young Carer’s Hub – 0333 006 9711

www.forwardcarers.org.uk

Carers UK: 0808 808 7777

Homegroup Young Carers Service

Carers Trust: 0844 800 4361

Birmingham – Spurgeons Young Carers

Useful links for families

The Waiting Room

ParentWise – A helping hand for parents and carers

Kooth – Your online mental wellbeing community

Compass Support – early help for families

Forward Thinking Birmingham – Pause hubs