Safeguarding

At Life Skills Manor for Autism we are fully committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and we expect all staff, volunteers and the wider community to share this commitment.  For pupils to feel that they are able to do their best and achieve their true potential, it is important that they feel safe and supported in our school environment.

We ensure that our pupils feel secure, are encouraged to communicate, are listened to and are safe. Throughout our curriculum, we provide activities and opportunities that equip our children to stay safe and develop essential life skills.

We aim to 'prevent', 'protect' and 'support' all our pupils by addressing child protection in the curriculum, including online safety, and by empowering and enabling staff to be vigilant for vulnerable pupils through regular, ongoing training and the dissemination of information.

Our Governors are involved in overseeing and guiding our Safeguarding procedures and work to ensure the highest standards of safety, awareness and support for our pupils, staff and families.

A safeguarding audit each year ensures our systems meet statutory guidelines and, in many cases, go beyond basic requirements. We receive advice and guidance from the Local Authority and our staff are trained on a regular basis on up to date topics relating to safeguarding and child protection. We actively support the Government's Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism, and training for all new staff.

All staff in school, including volunteers and outside agencies under-go relevant DBS checks (Disclosure and Barring).

Where there is any concern about the wellbeing/safeguarding of a pupil in school this is referred to the pupil's Local Authority Multi Agency Partnership (MAP) team for advice, support and further action where required.  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 pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child's welfare.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy, which can be viewed on the Reports & Policies page of this website.