Early years safeguarding

If you are you worried that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm and needs immediate protection:

Contact the police if there is an immediate risk of danger:

• 999

Otherwise contact the Family Front Door (Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5:00pm (until 4:30pm on a Friday)):

• 01905 822 666

Out of office hours (5:00pm to 8:30am weekdays and all day weekends and bank holidays) contact the Emergency Duty team:

• 01905 768020

For Early Years safeguarding support, contact us:

• Email: EYCC@worcestershire.gov.uk
• Tel: 01905 844048

Level 2 Early years Safeguarding training

Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility, and the early years and childcare team are delighted to offer face to face, in-house training on a date and time to suit your and your staff.

This 2.5 hour course is designed to bring teams together to reflect on current practice and remind ourselves of our safeguarding duties.

To support delegates and settings, this in-house course does not use a formal presentation. We instead use a mixture of professional discussion and practical activities to explore how we can meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) through the following topics:

• our responsibilities to Safeguard Children
• raising our awareness of Safeguarding threats
• recognising the signs and symptoms of abuse
• consider contextualised safeguarding
• understand how to handle a disclosure of abuse

Cost: £300 + VAT for a maximum of 25 staff

Settings can choose to share their in-house course with another local setting. If they do this then the responsibility to charge the other attending setting lies with the setting hosting the training

How an in-house training course is organised:

• arrange a date and time which has been agreed with your trainer.
• the training team will organise a contract to secure the work
• once the contract is signed and invoice is requested or course is loaded into CPD
• on receipt of the returned register by the trainer CPD will be updated to reflect who attended and certificates issued

Contact us to discuss the details:

• workforcesupport@worcestershire.gov.uk

They are open to all DSL's and Deputy DSL's, are free of charge to provide updates on policy, legislation, guidance and local procedures, as well as giving you the opportunity for peer discussion

Places on the Forums are to be booked via CPD online to ensure that we do not breach health and safety at the venues used.

The role and responsibilities of the DSL

The DSL holds a significant level of responsibility and they should be given the additional time, funding, training and resources to fulfil this role effectively. To support with this we have developed the below document which outlines the roles and responsibilities of the DSL:

• DSL Job description (PDF)

We can support early years and childcare settings to meet statutory requirements and adopt best practice by conducting a safeguarding review which will identify non-compliance and areas of weakness that need to be addressed.

We will make recommendations where appropriate and help your school to draw up an action plan to make the necessary improvements.

We can help implement and facilitate management of Safeguarding within your setting by providing:

• a 33 point audit to ensure your statutory requirements are being met
• an action plan for corrective and preventative measures
• help with change improvements

To discuss a early years safeguarding review please contact us.

As a service we recognise time is precious and so we wanted to provide a quick and simple way to share learning on a range of safeguarding themes.

These could be the ideal complement to your current safeguarding training offer and easily accessible for all.

This series will build over time so please do get in touch with us if you would like to suggest a theme, contact us.

Webcast links:

• 7 minutes of safeguarding - Introduction
• 7 minutes of Safeguarding - Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Safeguarding Reforms September 2025

This webcast highlights the new Safeguarding reforms coming into action through the revised EYFS due to be published September 2025.

This short 20 minute webcast will support you and your teams in preparing for the new statutory requirements, helping to thread a strong safeguarding culture throughout your practice.

Low level concerns in the Early Years

Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2024 places a requirement on schools and colleges to have policies and processes in place to deal with any concerns or allegations regarding adults working or volunteering with children, which do not meet the harm threshold, referred to as ‘low-level’ concerns.

Although this requirement is specifically applicable to schools and colleges in England, KCSIE clearly states, as a matter of best practice, it could be applied to any organisation working with children.

This 40 minute webcast explores our safeguarding responsibilities and the importance of building a positive culture around safeguarding, considering how adopting low level concerns into our safeguarding practice can strengthen this. We will address the confusion that sometimes arises between the definition of concerns, complaints and allegations and how to deal with these effectively. We will also consider past serious case reviews and investigations with a focus on Vanessa George and Jimmy Saville to help us understand the importance of addressing ‘niggles or concerns’.

By the end of the 40 minutes I am hoping you will have the knowledge, confidence and passion to adopt low level concerns into your current practices to help build an effective safeguarding culture to be proud of.

The following are model templates for safeguarding and child protection policies and procedures.  
These are intended to be model documents which providers may wish to use to support the development of the setting's policy and procedure, rather than fully comprehensive and prescribed documents. 

There may be sections that the setting needs to change in order to ensure that they fully reflect their own practice.
Some settings may also want to have separate policies for such things as whistle-blowing and information sharing, and if this is the case, we suggest simply making reference to the separate document in the safeguarding policy.

Model policies 

We have created some useful templates you may wish to use or adapt to your setting. Please note that childminders who are registered with an agency may need to substitute the name of the agency where there is reference to Ofsted.

Sample Safeguarding and Child protection policy

Download:

• Group settings Sample Safeguarding and Child protection policy June 2024 (Word)
• Childminder Sample Safeguarding and Child protection Policy June 2024 (Word)

Suitability of people

Download:

• Allegation of abuse record (Word)
• Complaint record (Word)
• Conviction determination and caution declaration form (Word)
• Health declaration form (Word)

Child safeguarding records

Download:

• Individual file front sheet (Word)
• Individual file chronology (Word)
• Safety and welfare concern form (Word)
• Safety and welfare continuation form (Word)
• Safety and welfare alternative concern form (Word)
• Daily child chronology for all children (Word)
• Transfer form for safeguarding records between establishments (Word)

Safer recruitment

Download:

• Safeguarding lead supervision notes (Word)
• Safeguarding training record (Word)
• Safeguarding training record (Excel)
• Safer recruitment record sheet (Word)
• Safer recruitment record sheet (Excel)

Operation encompass

Download:

• Operation Encompass Early Years Safeguarding Statement (Word)

Safeguarding and Child protection guidance for private, voluntary and independent early years and childcare providers

This guidance has been written to support all early years settings in delivering effective safeguarding practice. This document was previously known as the Yellow folder so can be used to update information you may currently hold.

Download:

• Safeguarding and Child protection guidance for private voluntary and independent early years and childcare providers (PDF)

Safeguarding Self Assessment audit tool

These audit tools, one for group providers and one for childminders have been designed to help you reflect on current safeguarding practice and identify areas for development. It is a recommendation that you complete this annually to ensure you are always developing your safeguarding practice.

Download:

• Early years safeguarding self-assessment audit for Group settings (Word)
• Childminder master early years safeguarding self assessment audit (Word)
• Safeguarding self assessment audit for out of school providers (Word)

Multi-agency levels of need

This Worcestershire levels of need guidance is intended to assist professionals in identifying and responding to the needs of children, young people and families. All those working with children should be aware of this document and how it can support and inform the decisions you make regarding the safeguarding of children.

Download:

• Levels of need guidance (PDF)

If you need any further support please contact us.