OVERVIEW
Further education (FE) settings are distinctive in the world of safeguarding. Unlike a primary or secondary school, a college or adult education provider teaches a remarkably wide range of learners under one roof: 16- and 17-year-olds who are still legally children, adults of all ages returning to learning, apprentices in the workplace, and learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who may be supported on an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) right up to the age of 25. This means FE staff need to understand and apply two distinct but overlapping safeguarding frameworks at the same time: child safeguarding for those under 18, and adult safeguarding for those who are 18 or over. Knowing which framework applies, and to whom, is the foundation of safe practice in further education.
This course explains both frameworks and how they fit together in an FE context. For under-18s, it covers Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) — the statutory guidance that applies to FE colleges — together with the Children Acts 1989 and 2004 and Working Together to Safeguard Children. It sets out the four categories of child abuse and the contextual safeguarding risks that are especially relevant to this older age group: child criminal and sexual exploitation, county lines, peer-on-peer (child-on-child) abuse and sexual harassment, domestic abuse, radicalisation and the Prevent duty, mental health and self-harm, and online harms. For learners aged 18 and over, the course explains the Care Act 2014 — the definition of an adult at risk, the six safeguarding principles, the categories of abuse, Making Safeguarding Personal, and the central importance of mental capacity, consent and a person’s right to make their own choices.
