Here at St Austin’s, we recognise our moral and statutory responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children.  We endeavor to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued.  We will act quickly and follow our procedures to ensure children receive effective support, protection and justice.

Professional Curiosity & Challenge

Our staff are professionally curious practitioners who will ensure their assessments of a child/ren and their families are holistic by trying to understand what is happening around them, rather than making assumptions and taking things at face value. We understand that where practitioners are eager and willing to engage with children and their families or carers we know that assessment of risk is much more robust, information is sought from other agencies and shared and the practitioner has a good understanding of potential barriers.

A lack of professional curiosity can lead to:

• less obvious indicators of abuse, neglect, significant harm and vulnerability being missed
• making inaccurate assumptions when assessing the child’s needs and the potential risk posed to a child
• Wrong interventions being put in place putting the child or family in further danger

Professional curiosity is helpful nosiness or healthy scepticism. Rather than making general assumptions, our staff will have a genuine interest in the lives of our pupils to better help to safeguard them.

Safeguarding Policies

Our safeguarding policies, which help ensure the safeguarding of our children, are available on our policies page.

Advice and Support from Wakefield Safeguarding Children Partnership: