Safeguarding

Our Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) are:

Katherine Bones – Designated Safeguarding Lead

Mardi Brown – Deputy Safeguarding Lead

‘Safeguarding children is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and families has a role to play’. ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (2018)

“Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance as: protecting children from maltreatment; preventing impairment of children’s health or development; ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.” Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023

Safeguarding Statement

The word safeguarding means:

Protecting children from maltreatment
Preventing impairment of children’s health or development
Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Chelford Village Preschool is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We provide all staff with training and guidance to follow when they suspect a child may be experiencing abuse or is at risk of harm, we believe that it is always unacceptable for a child to experience abuse of any kind.

We support the Government's Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism, and we have also signed up to Operation Encompass, a police and education safeguarding partnership which enables us to offer immediate support to children experiencing domestic abuse.

Our attitudes and values towards the well-being and development of our children is promoted at every opportunity. We believe that every child has a right to learn in a supportive, caring and safe environment which includes the right to protection from all types of abuse. Staff are trained to be vigilant for signs of any child in distress and are confident in sharing information with relevant team members or professionals in order to avert and alleviate any such problems.

Safeguarding children is about ensuring every child is safe from harm - safe from people who could abuse, safe from discrimination or harassment – and that we all feel safe in our environment.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, which include:

All Polices and Procedures can be found in the Key Information section of our website.

Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our children are discussed with their parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare. If a member of staff is concerned about a child’s welfare, they will record their concern with any observations or conversation heard, and report to a manager/DSL as soon as possible/the same day.

If a member of staff has concerns which relate to the actions or behaviour of another member of staff (which could suggest that she/he is unsuitable to work with children), then this will be reported to one of the DSLs in confidence, who will refer and seek advice from the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) who will consider what action to take. This is in line with our safeguarding procedure, Allegations against Staff, Volunteers or Agency Staff.

Please follow the links below for your local children’s safeguarding partnership, which offer further advice, information and support on a range of safeguarding issues and how to keep children safe.

Please link to:

Cheshire East Safeguarding Children’s Partnership

https://www.cescp.org.uk/homepage.aspx

Cheshire West and Chester Safeguarding Childrens Partnership

https://www.cheshirewestscp.co.uk/

Operation Encompass

https://www.operationencompass.org/