Supporting our students and their families is extremely important to us. As stated in 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' — the Department for Education's statutory guidance for schools — 'It is essential that everybody working in a school or college understands their safeguarding responsibilities'. To this end, all our staff receive training in safeguarding children and child protection, and several — our safeguarding team-- are trained to Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) level.
The Trust and the school are committed to engaging with families through robust partnership working. We therefore urge any family that needs support to consider the benefits of Early Help Early Help - Devon Children and Families Partnership (dcfp.org.uk) Keeping our Students Safe in the College
Our students can talk to any member of staff about any problems, but may wish in the first instance to speak with:
If a child is in immediate danger, do not delay or hesitate and call the Police on 999. If you have an urgent safeguarding concern call the Devon MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) on 0345 155 1071 or 0345 600 0888 out of hours). The following contacts for additional support may also be of help:
Kooth (Mental Health website for young people) ●kooth.com
Reporting any concerns
Parents may contact us using the details provided in the 'Contact Us' section of this website. Our students may speak directly with a member of staff (Tutor, Head of Year, or member of our Safeguarding team), or contact us via the 'Need to Talk' email address (our safeguarding team will monitor and triage any communications received via this route to ensure appropriate support is provided). We also consider discrimination as defined by the Equality Act 2010 to be a safeguarding concern and encourage any student who is experiencing any form of discrimation to report such to us (please see the 'Reporting Discrimination' section of the 'Equality & Diversity' page of our website).
Tor Support Services
Tor Supportservices provide free, confidential, non-urgent counselling, advice and support for children and young people aged 5 to 25, in Okehampton and the surrounding Parishes. Tor are based in our school and aim to 'alleviate emotional and psychological distress through professional counselling; improve quality of life, self-esteem, happiness and relationships; and help improve life chances and foster more positive adult lives. Anyone can make a referral into the service, and young people can refer themselves. To make a referral please complete the form provided via this link. For further information, call 0786 444 263 or email coordinators@torsupportservices.org.uk.
Sources of Additional Support and Information
In addtion to the advice we share here on the Safeguarding pages of our website regarding specific safeguarding issues and concerns, the following resources may be useful: