Principles of Safeguarding is a one-day course, naturally tailored for our industry to highlight the importance of safeguarding.
Safeguarding our pupils, and ourselves as trainers, means learning how to spot and help stop abusive, harmful and inappropriate behaviour – whether that behaviour is perpetrated by pupils, trainers themselves, other drivers or someone in your pupil’s family or friendship groups. Safeguarding is a crucial role for anyone working with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults. It is important that we, as trainers, recognise our own role and responsibilities for safeguarding.
Safeguarding is a critical gap in the ADI training process. Indeed we are one of the few training professions not to require mandatory safeguarding training – yet we are amongst the most vulnerable to safeguarding breaches, given the one on one nature of driver training and the number of pupils being young people or vulnerable adults.
Regulation is increasing to protect pupils as serious complaints against ADIs for alleged safeguarding breaches soar. While trainers find themselves at risk of threats of verbal or physical abuse from pupils and other motorists.
Whilst regulation is important, education could prove a much more powerful tool in stopping safeguarding breaches occurring, and stopping harm coming to any one. Learning what safeguarding is and how to play your role in protecting others, and yourself, is crucial to your professional development.
We are now the first and only driver training organisation to offer a nationally accredited Level 3 qualification with our new Principles of Safeguarding course. With the subject of safeguarding being a hot topic for our industry, this course serves to provide a foundation of key topics and issues.
Accredited by Ofqual regulated First Aid Awards (FAA), this qualification offers the tools, knowledge and understanding to enable you to identify and deal with safeguarding issues, from recognising the warning signs of abuse and neglect, to how to safeguard yourself in everyday work and report identified incidents. We help you to ensure you not only have the appropriate knowledge and understanding of how to best manage a safeguarding breach with your pupils, but also to improve your awareness of safeguarding breaches that trainers can also fall into, sometimes completely innocently.
On successful completion of the qualification assessment, you will be issued with a nationally recognised FAA Level 3 Award in Principles of Safeguarding and Protecting Children, Young People or Vulnerable Adults (RQF).
This is a nationally recognised award and is designed for all individuals who have contact with children, young people or vulnerable adults in their working environment, including voluntary work, regardless of the field they are directly involved in. This qualification can therefore be applied and transferred outside of your role as an ADI or rider trainer and is suitable for those working or volunteering in any working environment where individuals are likely to find themselves at risk.
When asked this morning at the start of the course why the attendants had enrolled the answer I gave was to firstly keep myself up to date with the hot topics in the industry but in particular to answer the question in my mind of how to reconcile the needs of discussing with pupils potential safeguarding issues while also complying with the codes of conduct issued by the DVSA, namely:
"...not initiate inappropriate discussions about their own personal relationships and take care to avoid becoming involved in a client’s personal affairs or discussions about a client’s personal relationships, unless safeguarding concerns are raised..."
This is a subject that has been on my mind for some time, a fictitious example I created in my blog at the end of April which you can read here.
But I was one of about 12 peers; a fine group of well meaning individuals, some of whom had travelled from afar to be on the course and paid for overnight accommodation. We were told that there had only been 22 other people who had attended the course across the entire UK, indeed many courses had been cancelled due to lack of numbers.
I can now understand why that is the case, and I would warn anyone interested in attending to think twice. There were no fewer than 114 slides bringing new meaning to "death by powerpoint" and when I asked if we got copies of them I was informed the content of them were inside the book that we had been provided. The book in front of me was "Safeguarding and protecting children, young people of vulnerable adults"; an instructuk publication. My copy appeared to me to have been previously used, the spine was broken and various pages were literally stuck together. But the trainer was indeed whizzing through content which was directly lifted from the book. Each slide had details of the previous course training provider in the footer and was not in any way personalised for the driving instructor industry or the DIA.
I don't feel inclined or qualified to make judgement on the content but all I can say is that when I or any attendee asked any practical question which had particular relevance to the driving instructor industry there was not a clear, concise answer provided by the trainer. As the day progressed, attendees were raising questions and not even directing them to the trainer, it became a bit of a 'free for all' of opinion. No-one could deny the good faith and best of intentions of the attendees, they really were a sound group of individuals.
Interspersing the slides were "case studies" the likes of which were truly unbelievable in nature for the scenarios that they created, bearing absolutely no relevance to driving instructors at all. We were being asked to consider our opinion of the plight of individuals from all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds. Not a single case study involved a scenario involving driving instructors training pupils, trainers teaching PDI's, examiners assessing on driving tests or standards checks etc.
Attendees were discussing the legality of in-car video recording, whistle blowing the conduct of other instructors and examiners, the appropriate use of social media, the potential benefits of systems to deal with safeguarding issues. Many people had opinions and I can honestly say I left the course feeling more uncertain of how I should be protecting myself and my pupils on safeguarding than I did when I arrived. There was talk about a safeguarding policy but no template to help us incorporate it into our businesses. There was mention of adapting the Terms & Conditions, GDPR Policy, Privacy policy and much more but details lacked depth, authority or clarity - it was just a confusing miscellany of vague information.
Crucially, there was no provision made at the end for ensuring that the objectives discussed for each attendee at the start were delivered on, which is regrettable, disappointing and unprofessional.
Unless things change for this fledgling course, one to miss folks.... sad as it is to say, it does not do what it promises. I do not have an animus towards our trainer, it just appeared that he realised the content of his delivery was not in context with his audience.
When you consider that attendees give up a days earnings circa £300, the course price £135 and any additional expenses such as accommodation (£199 for the hotel), travel etc, then I think it not unreasonable for attendees of this course to feel somewhat let down by their driving instructor association.
"...not initiate inappropriate discussions about their own personal relationships and take care to avoid becoming involved in a client’s personal affairs or discussions about a client’s personal relationships, unless safeguarding concerns are raised..."
This is a subject that has been on my mind for some time, a fictitious example I created in my blog at the end of April which you can read here.
But I was one of about 12 peers; a fine group of well meaning individuals, some of whom had travelled from afar to be on the course and paid for overnight accommodation. We were told that there had only been 22 other people who had attended the course across the entire UK, indeed many courses had been cancelled due to lack of numbers.
I can now understand why that is the case, and I would warn anyone interested in attending to think twice. There were no fewer than 114 slides bringing new meaning to "death by powerpoint" and when I asked if we got copies of them I was informed the content of them were inside the book that we had been provided. The book in front of me was "Safeguarding and protecting children, young people of vulnerable adults"; an instructuk publication. My copy appeared to me to have been previously used, the spine was broken and various pages were literally stuck together. But the trainer was indeed whizzing through content which was directly lifted from the book. Each slide had details of the previous course training provider in the footer and was not in any way personalised for the driving instructor industry or the DIA.
I don't feel inclined or qualified to make judgement on the content but all I can say is that when I or any attendee asked any practical question which had particular relevance to the driving instructor industry there was not a clear, concise answer provided by the trainer. As the day progressed, attendees were raising questions and not even directing them to the trainer, it became a bit of a 'free for all' of opinion. No-one could deny the good faith and best of intentions of the attendees, they really were a sound group of individuals.
Interspersing the slides were "case studies" the likes of which were truly unbelievable in nature for the scenarios that they created, bearing absolutely no relevance to driving instructors at all. We were being asked to consider our opinion of the plight of individuals from all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds. Not a single case study involved a scenario involving driving instructors training pupils, trainers teaching PDI's, examiners assessing on driving tests or standards checks etc.
Attendees were discussing the legality of in-car video recording, whistle blowing the conduct of other instructors and examiners, the appropriate use of social media, the potential benefits of systems to deal with safeguarding issues. Many people had opinions and I can honestly say I left the course feeling more uncertain of how I should be protecting myself and my pupils on safeguarding than I did when I arrived. There was talk about a safeguarding policy but no template to help us incorporate it into our businesses. There was mention of adapting the Terms & Conditions, GDPR Policy, Privacy policy and much more but details lacked depth, authority or clarity - it was just a confusing miscellany of vague information.
Crucially, there was no provision made at the end for ensuring that the objectives discussed for each attendee at the start were delivered on, which is regrettable, disappointing and unprofessional.
Unless things change for this fledgling course, one to miss folks.... sad as it is to say, it does not do what it promises. I do not have an animus towards our trainer, it just appeared that he realised the content of his delivery was not in context with his audience.
When you consider that attendees give up a days earnings circa £300, the course price £135 and any additional expenses such as accommodation (£199 for the hotel), travel etc, then I think it not unreasonable for attendees of this course to feel somewhat let down by their driving instructor association.
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