Spectrum article: Winter 2005

Angie Punaks, BWY Ethics, Equity & Welfare Manager writes:

From some of your telephone calls and emails I have received over the last 3 months, I realise that several of you are unsure of the terms I have been using in relation to Child Protection, terms such as "CRB" and "Enhanced Disclosure". It is so easy to use terminology freely yourself, expecting everyone else to understand, which is very unfair. So I would now like to rectify the situation and hope you will accept my apologies,

CRB stands for the "Criminal Records Bureau", which was set up about 3 years ago by the government to be a centralised office dealing with "police checks". Its existence means that individuals can no longer obtain a "police checks" themselves, through their local police station.

Police checks, in fact, no longer exist. They are now called "Enhanced Disclosures". There are 3 different types or levels of Disclosures available, but the "Enhanced" Disclosure is what is required for persons who are working with children, young persons under 18 years of age and vulnerable adults. To obtain an Enhanced Disclosure (ED) a person has to go through a CRB registered "umbrella organisation" that has the authority to process them. The BWY uses the umbrella organisation Lloyd Education. I hope this clarifies things a bit for you.

Yes, it perhaps seems surprising that an ED is necessary when working with late teenagers/young adults up to the age of 18, particularly when they can legally marry at 16; it seems to be an anomaly. However, a "child" is defined in the Children Act 1989 as a "young person under the age of 18". So please bear in mind if you should have a young student in your class under the age of 18, unaccompanied by their parent or another adult in loco parentis, that you require, in accordance with the BWY CP Policy, an ED that needs to be updated every 3 years.

HANDS-ON ADJUSTMENT and USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS - CONSENT FORMS
Sections 3.2.1, 3.4 and Appendix E of our CP Policy refer to hands-on adjustment and the use of photographs and images. It is our policy that parents and/or students sign a Consent Form in both respects should you, as the teacher, wish to use adjustment or take photographs and use images of your students. The parents of very young children would need to sign the form, and your older students can sign the form themselves. You know your students best, and whether both the young person and their parent sign is best left to your own discretion. The 2 consent forms can be found on the BWY website www.bwy.org.uk/ethics.php. If you wish to receive a printed copy of each form, please contact me.

I do hope that the procedures we are putting into place do not seem to be "over the top". It can be a fine line between watchfulness and safety and living in a "fear culture". If we can see our CP Policy as the equivalent of a Fire Drill, we can then understand the necessity to have procedures in place and to know how to react should the need arise. I like to think that our procedures are taking preventative measures and not reactionary ones.

As always, I am grateful to those of you who have contacted me to date; it is always good to speak with you and increasingly I am getting to know more members. Do please feel free to contact me on any issue relating to Child Protection and/or Equity.

Angie Punaks - BWY Ethics, Equity & Welfare Manager
Tel: 01394 446054 email: equity@bwy.org.uk