Educate to Empower

What is a Local Safeguarding Children Partnership?

1. Education in Action

2. Stronger Together: Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships

3. What is a Local Safeguarding Children Partnership?

4. ...and what do they look like in the North West?

5. A local safeguarding children partnership (LSCP) is sometimes known as multi-agency safeguarding arrangements (MASA)

6. It is a partnership between agencies working together to protect children from harm across the local area... 

7. ...and its mission is to ensure that children grow up in safe environments, free from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

8. The LSCP statutory partners are:
   - Local Authority
   - Police Force
   - Integrated Care Board

9. And Now the North West region is leading the way...

10. ...through the North West Regional Improvement Plan Pilot (NW RIPP)

11. ...by including education as a strategic & equal partner

12. LSCP Core Functions

13. Stronger Together: Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships

- Strategic Leadership: Sets priorities for safeguarding across the local area.

- Quality Assurance: Monitors and evaluates safeguarding practices through audits and reviews

- Learning & Improvement: Shares lessons from child safeguarding reviews & promotes best practices

- Multi-Agency Training: Training for professionals across sectors

- Challenge and Support: Holds partners accountable and encourages continuous improvement

14. LSCP Structure

15. Stronger Together: Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships

16. The LSCP operates through a series of multi-agency committees, each focused on specific safeguarding themes...

17. Committees may include:

    • Case Review

    • Harm Outside the Home

    • Quality Assurance

    • Safeguarding in Education

    • Training & Development

    • Young People’s Voice & Influence

18. These committees allow agencies to review practice, share good examples, and identify areas for improvement. The structure ensures that safeguarding is not siloed but integrated across services

19. LSCPs contribute to sub-regional and regional partnerships by sharing frontline insights, learning from practice, and aligning priorities

20. This ensures a co-ordinated approach to safeguarding across wider geographical areas

21. LSCP Education Links

22. Stronger Together: Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships

    • Education Committee: Directly engages schools, colleges, early years settings, and APs to address safeguarding concerns

    • Training and Resources: Provides tailored safeguarding training for educators, including updates on legislation and best practice

    • Policy Alignment: Helps education settings align their safeguarding policies with local and national standards

    • Information Sharing: Facilitates safe and lawful sharing of information between education and other agencies

    • Support During Reviews: Assists education settings in responding to child safeguarding reviews and implementing recommendations

23. LSCP Why Does It Matter?

24. Stronger Together: Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships

25. Education professionals are often the first to identify and respond to safeguarding concerns. The LSCP ensures they are supported, informed, and connected to a wider network of protection for children

26. Together, we can create safer learning environments and brighter futures for children, young people, & families in the North West

Effective safeguarding practice relies not just on what schools do, but how they put those actions in place. Thoughtful, well‑structured implementation planning helps ensure that new approaches genuinely make a difference for children and young people. 

Using evidence‑informed frameworks—such as the Education Endowment Foundation’s A School’s Guide to Implementation—supports educators to identify the right priorities, understand the specific problem they are trying to solve, and plan the steps needed for sustainable change. 

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PSTB In Action

Scenario:
Teachers have raised concerns about Liam, age 14. He frequently arrives late, appears tired, and has mentioned “lots of stuff going on at home.” His homework completion has dropped significantly.

Headline & Background

“Liam is increasingly late to school, appears tired, and has made comments suggesting possible stress or instability at home. His engagement and homework completion have reduced over the past month.”

Idea Generation

The team generates possible ideas to explore or address the issue, such as:

• Daily pastoral check‑ins
• Contact home to gather more information
• Offer breakfast club access
• Explore Early Help support
• Provide a safe space for Liam to talk
• Speak with his favourite teacher to increase trusted‑adult contact
• Review attendance and behaviour data for patterns
• Ask Liam about sleep routines and wellbeing
• Consult with the SENCO in case learning needs are contributing

Idea Selection

The team selects the most relevant and proportionate ideas:

1. Daily pastoral check‑ins
2. Contact home
3. Offer access to breakfast club
4. Create a trusted‑adult support plan
5. Review data for attendance/behaviour trends

Analyse Benefits and Concerns

Daily pastoral check‑ins

Benefits: Builds a sense of safety and connection; early spotting of increased risk.
Concerns: Could become performative or rushed if staff capacity is stretched.

Contact home

Benefits: Can clarify home situation and identify support needs.
Concerns: Risk of increasing family stress or defensiveness; may not reach parents easily.

Breakfast club access

Benefits: Ensures Liam starts the day with food; encourages punctuality.
Concerns: Liam may feel embarrassed unless framed positively.

Trusted‑adult support plan

Benefits: Builds relational security; increases likelihood of disclosure if needed.
Concerns: Staff availability needs to be reliable.

Review attendance and behaviour data

Benefits: Helps identify patterns that point to underlying causes.
Concerns: No significant patterns may emerge, offering limited insight.

Work Any Critical Concerns

• For the breakfast club, decide to introduce it casually (“We’d love to have you along—lots of students start their day there”).
• For contacting home, the DSL will make the call, using a strengths‑based, non‑judgemental approach.
• For the trusted‑adult plan, the identified teacher confirms availability three days a week, and pastoral team covers the remaining days.

All concerns are considered manageable.

What Do We Mean by a ‘Fierce Conversation’?

A fierce conversation is one in which we step out from behind our assumptions, anxieties, or automatic responses and engage with honesty and clarity. As Susan Scott explains, it is about “coming out from behind ourselves and making the conversation real.”

Scott highlights three key principles:

• Our personal and professional success often hinges on the quality of our conversations.
• The conversation is the relationship; how we communicate shapes trust, collaboration, and outcomes.
• Every conversation involves people, and therefore emotions, perspectives, and needs.

In an education setting, especially when carrying safeguarding responsibilities, these conversations are often the ones we anticipate least. They might involve addressing a concern with a colleague, challenging practice that doesn’t align with safeguarding expectations, or naming a difficult truth that needs to be heard.

A fierce conversation typically:

• involves a topic that feels uncomfortable but necessary
• engages emotions—both yours and the other person’s
• requires clarity, courage, and compassion
• has the potential to strengthen understanding and improve outcomes when handled well

The 7 principles of a fierce conversation are:

1. Master the courage to interrogate reality.
2. Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real.
3. Be here, prepared to be nowhere else.
4. Tackle your toughest challenge today.
5. Obey your instincts.
6. Take responsibility for your emotional wake.
7. Let silence do the heavy lifting.

While these conversations may feel daunting, they are a vital part of creating a culture where safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility—and where concerns are addressed early, openly, and constructively.

7 Steps of a Fierce Conversation

Scott argues that the first 60 seconds are crucial. She provides a seven-step model to take you through the first 60 seconds of your conversation:

Step One: Name the issue. If you have more than one issue, there has been a significant failure on your part.

Step Two: Give one specific example to illustrate the issue.

Step Three: Confess your emotion – this shows that you are involved/affected by the issue and want to see it resolved quickly.

Step Four: Say what you feel is at stake – honestly, no matter how difficult. This will get the individual’s or team’s attention.

Step Five: Admit any involvement you may have had – what contribution you have made to the problem. This is a very important step.

Step Six: Say ‘I want to resolve this with you’ – show you want to move forward together and not to point the blame.

Step Seven: Invite the person to put forward their position – do not say anything and listen without interruption.

It should be possible to summarise the steps in a single sentence.