Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager (00:15.064)

Right then welcome back to the P-Pod the partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. Now I'm really pleased today to be joined by my guest because I know that she's been working extremely hard in the background over the last couple of years on a really, really important topic. Now, just to set the scene a little bit here, if we go back to working together back in 2018, which brought about the partnership arrangements for the Safeguarding Children Partnerships. And at that point, set in stone, what are known as the three statutory safeguarding partners. So that is the local authority, police and health as well. And I think right from the word go, there was a very, very strong desire to include education as a fourth statutory safeguarding partner. And this is going back to 2018 now. And really since then, there's been a lot of head scratching going on and a lot of will from the government, recognizing education as a really key safeguarding stakeholder as it's classed in working together and very much a desire to have education as a fourth statutory safeguarding partner. But alongside that come a whole host of complications. And I think to be fair to the government, they have been saying very clearly for a number of years now, we do want education as a fourth statutory safeguarding partner. We're just not too sure how that's going to work. Now, just to kind of clarify around that for anybody listening, thinking, it could be pretty straightforward. When we think about education, education is not a single body as such. So we might have independent schools, local authority maintained schools, academies.

So the question is, how do you have not only one person representing that whole sector, but also how do you have somebody who's able to hold the entire sector accountable in terms of safeguarding? And it is a big challenge. And to be fair to the government, I they are looking very much at ways of how they can achieve this. And as part of that, over the last few years, they've been really looking out towards safeguarding children partnerships to see if there's any initiatives that are taking place to be able to sort of set the scene and, improve as a sort of pilot project about how this could work.

And I'm really pleased that actually Somerset has been very much part of this and going back two years ago, almost exactly, we had a new initiative started off to have education represented on the executive group of the Safeguarding Children Partnership. So I'm really pleased to be joined today by Natalie Hanna, who is currently sitting as the executive member for education within the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. So Natalie, thank you so much for coming along today. I know you've been working really hard and I know at the end of term.

You're juggling a lot of things. You've got pupils outside your door as we speak, wanting to talk to you. So I appreciate your time, but thank you very much coming along. think before we begin, obviously being the executive members is not your sort of full-time role. So could you just sort of introduce yourself and what your day job is, but also some of the other work that you do.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Steve for having me. I'm very excited and slightly nervous to be here. So essentially my day job is a head teacher for a special school in the Mendeep area of Somerset. This school was built in 2015 and I've been head teacher here for probably the last eight years. We're a school for autism and speech language and communication needs. And as a school new to Somerset, I was really welcomed in and joined what is the Sense Group. So the Sense Group was the Association of Special Schools across Somerset, which was seven of us, most of whom were local authority maintained when I joined. And for a couple of years, I was privileged enough to chair that group and be part of lots of local authority action and movements. And one of the huge things that I did as chair of that group was support the outcomes of the Send Ofsted review at Somerset. I'm also part of the Partnership Trust, which is one of the first trusts that was set up in the area. We have 18 schools across Somerset and Baines, predominantly primaries with two special schools. And within that trust, I am director of safeguarding. So I've been doing that now probably for three or four years.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So yeah, you've got several hats on and I say one of those over last two years, alongside everything else that you've been doing with Sense as a head teacher as well, as I mentioned, is sitting on the executive group. This goes back just over two years now, I think. can you kind of take us back a little bit in terms of sort of how did that come about? How did you end up sort of sitting on the executive group?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Yeah, well, I think as I started working for the Trust as Director of Safeguarding, one of the huge things that I noticed straight away was how busy the day-to-day job of a DSL is, especially in a small primary school where you've got the head teacher and the DSL in role. I was going in as a Trust Director of Safeguarding, holding people accountable for their safeguarding practices and procedures. And it was a lovely thing to do because often you have really positive relationships with the heads that you work with in Trust and the DSLs. 

But it was also quite frustrating because one of the first things that came out was the audit that I was doing was duplicating work that was also happening at local authority level. So the audits that were completed, the 175157 audits, there was no way for those two things to be aligned. So people were being held accountable twice. And for me, that was a massive, massive frustration. Anything that increases workload or duplicates what we're doing at school level I get really passionate about. so I'd started having those conversations within the local authority. And then as I say, as chair of sense, I ended up sat around the table at the Ofsted meeting down in County Hall and Claire Winter was opposite me. So I kind of had that conversation with her and said, how, how do we change these things? So that what we do within school settings and what we do at local authority level is aligned and we're not producing extra work for everybody. And Claire said, I've been thinking about this for a while I'd love for education to be a partner on the board. And I said, I'll do it. Me. And again, then we sat down and had to think about it and thought, actually, how do I, as one head teacher in one school or one director of safeguarding in one trust, represent the voice of all those education settings? I can talk about the people that I spend time with and the groups that I represent, but it was really important that even at that point, we had kind of that unity across the system. So at that point, the route was to go out to the association. So I messaged out to Sense and to Sash and to Saff and asked, would anybody want to fulfil this responsibility or would anybody have any objections if I did? And nobody came back to say that they had any issues. So I took that as a vote of confidence and stepped into the role in September, 2023.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Yeah. it's, and just as a bit of sort of, wider information for people. So you mentioned a few, few different groups there. You mentioned SAF and SAF. a similar association, like you mentioned about SENSE, which is for special schools. so SAF and SAF is the groups representing, primary schools and secondary school heads there as well across Somerset. And I think you've picked up on a really important point straight away, because although we do have those groups, that's still not kind of widely kind of represented and just a bit of wider context for people listening as well as part of the safeguarding children partnerships. We have various subgroups that take place as part of the safeguarding children partnership. One of those up until recently was an education subgroup. And I think one of the challenges of that, as you've already kind of alluded to in your introduction there, is about having representation from across the board. And actually, I think over time, understanding that actually those small groups actually weren't able, no criticism of them, just in terms of their ability to actually represent widely. So I think it's probably fair to say it was a brave move for you to step up, but one that was very, very welcome because it is so key, isn't it? We have education.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Yeah. And I think Steve, it's important to say about the associations. When we were all local authority maintained or there were a few trusts coming out, they were funded by local authority as a support network for all those schools. So they were hugely attended. Their representation was quite high in all of those groups across the sector. And now I think that has changed and had to change because of the fractured nature of the education system, which is one of our huge challenges, isn't it?

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Absolutely. So over the last couple of years then, I know from talking to you, you've learned a lot. think we've all learned a lot as part of this. And that was the aim really of these sort of first two years to see how it goes, work out what happens, see what works, what doesn't work. So I guess over the last couple of years, are you able to give an overview about what you've been up to in a broad nutshell?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (08:38.38)

Yeah. So essentially I attend meetings of the partnership and that happens six times a year between the main group and then the kind of extended group that happens. Coming to the table at that, you're looking at kind of those strategic level decisions. So you're looking at how the partnership is budgeted for, what kind of income is coming across from the training sector. You're looking at case reviews, you're looking at reports that are provided by the independent scrutineer. You are looking at. One of the big focuses I think that came at end of the first year was the joint targeted area inspection in the JTI. And coming out of that were a lot of actions around things that needed to be put in place across all of the agencies and then things that were specific to the agencies. So you might be looking at, for example, how you roll out training across the police and health and local authority and schools and all of those kind of people work in different ways. So it's a conversation about actually, well, this will work for us and this won't work for us and different aspects of that. Case reviews, often they will come in and the work goes on in the background and then they'll come to the table and you'll look at actually, are there any questions that we have around this? Is there anything that is unclear in looking at this? Are there any further things that we need to go back and answer? So a really diverse range of things that I didn't quite expect, risk management. We look at the risk register regularly and identify areas that could potentially cause problems in the future. But a lot of work that I wasn't necessarily expecting to come to the table, comes to those meetings. There's also subgroups, as you say, Steve. So sometimes I will be invited to attend a subgroup. the development of the child sexual exploitation tool has been one that's been ongoing, looking at working with health on obesity and under fives. So there's lots of different things that I'll get invited to, some of which I'm able to go to and some of which I'm not, but all fascinating and a huge amount of work goes on in the background that people I think maybe just don't realize.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager (10:41.174)

And I think it's fair to say, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I know we've had conversations outside of here and I know from talking to you before, I think it's fair to say it was a bit of an eye opener for you sort of coming into the role and initially thinking, great, I can just come in just to chip into the conversation saying, you know, wave your hand, say, about education within this? But I think you realize actually it's like I said, it's quite a big beast.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Yeah, I was so naive walking into it to think, I mean, when you only work in education, you only see how things work in education. When you then step into other agencies, you see how things work in those agencies. And if you think about the complexities of some of that, so the police are working across five counties and trying to align their safeguarding partnerships across all of those five counties. Health are working in different trusts in the same way that education do, but their trusts are more established and more developed and more, I think they're more structured in lots of ways because they're area trusts rather than necessarily kind of split across localities. But there are still challenges within the governance of that. They can't say, actually, we're going to do this one thing and we're going to do it across the system. It just doesn't work like that. And then you have the added complexity of the level at which those agencies are working. So they're always dealing with the worst cases and the highest level of safeguarding, whereas education, we really are completely centered within early help. Everything that we want to do, everything that we want to achieve is let's prevent, let's prevent, let's prevent. Whereas actually the other agencies would love to prevent, but their capacity has to be predominantly focused on responding. And that's the nature of the beast, which I was really naive in that and thinking actually those two things would merge quite easily and they just don't. It's a really difficult challenge to try and work out. I think there's also, Steve, one of the things I've definitely taken away from this is we all get frustrated in education. Why, why don't the police, why don't health, why don't social care think about talking to the school? And essentially to be able to do that, it's an add on at the moment. And it has to be an add on because they're working within so many legislative structures and so many procedural things and systems that actually thinking about education is an add-on because it's not getting the job that they need to do done in the moment. So it's how we kind of move that from that place to thinking, even thinking of ourselves as partners within that, but it's been a really steep area of learning for me. It's not through lack of want or lack of people wanting to be in that kind of proactive and an early help stage, but there is just, there is just a divide that you're starting with because of the nature of the roles that we fulfill.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

And it's interesting, think, looking at changes to working together to safeguard children back in 2023, we were fully expecting education to become a four-staff tree safeguarding partner then. It was taken out fairly last minute, which we were quite surprised about, but it is there again, one of the key components of the current Children's Welfare and Schools Bill, which we're looking to hopefully go through into law later on this year. So it's definitely in a kind of area we're moving towards. And I think just picking up from what you're saying as well, the other thing alongside that is that continual positive move, I think, within statutory guidance around focusing around more around early help and more around, like I say, not having those divides, very much about working together. And in terms of the children's welfare and schools bill, about setting up locality teams, having a multi-agency safeguarding team, encompassing those key partners, which includes education within that. So I think there is a shift for that, but I think you're right. It is, it's tricky to navigate, it? And not only have you got those kind of sides of safeguarding child protection coming together and needing to mesh together in an effective way. But then on top of that, you've then got like say that diversity of the education sector, including the independent sector, which we've got a lot of independent schools within, within Somerset.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (14:51.532)

Alternative provisions, early help settings.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

It's So I know from talking to you that I said, now we're coming to the end of, in fact, we've pretty much reached the end of your tenure on the executive group. I know that you were due to step down a little while back, but I also know that you are really passionate about that, is brilliant, which is I wanted to talk to you. And I know we've had conversations about your hopes, your aspirations moving forward and what that looks like get onto that. What are your thoughts about that move from the government to make sure we are including education as a statutory partner? Do you think it's a positive move?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education 

100%. I think education has value to add at that strategic level. And there have definitely been moments where I've been able to kind of impact on the strategic board and say, okay, well, actually schools could support with this. This is something that we're already doing that we could bring into the picture or, you know, actually that will work that way in schools. We need to think about how we reach all of those different people and pass that information.

And as the time has gone on, definitely I've been able to, I'm more familiar with the structures that are in place in local authority that would allow that to happen. There's still going to be parts of the system that we find it really hard to reach. I think it is the right move, a hundred percent. think lots of my learning has been about us being an untapped resource. Schools are doing so much and can be doing so much to safeguard kids, but it's about that communication.

And I saw kind of proactively thinking how we reach out to those other agencies from us to them and them to us. We're all looking at exactly the same problem. We're just standing in really different places and we need to kind of just get closer together a little bit to be able to, to tackle that. And I'm, really look forward to kind of this next phase of the project to see where it goes, because I think other people will have different ideas of how this can work. And, and we'll see lots of little sections won't be popping up of people trying education work it and there will be a way. It won't be perfect and we will all have learning and movement to do but I think we've made it a really good start and I feel really confident about the work that we've done and genuinely just such a privilege to learn so much from those other partners and other agencies.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Well, and added to that, it's been a privilege to have you part of that role because I know that you're so passionate about it and full of ideas. And hopefully I'm not talking out of turn here, but I think from talking to you, it took quite a while, like you mentioned, to get your head around it all. Yeah. But actually now you have, it's like, okay, here you go. Here's what could work. Here's the bits that don't work and what have you. And with that, moving forward, what are the kind of key challenges that you would envisage for education as a statutory partner?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Well, think Somerset have done an awful lot of work really, really well around making sure that education settings have the training, support and information that we need. And I think that that is really firmly established and in place. And as a DSL working in Somerset and then also working around the local authorities, I see how much of a strength that is across the system. It's getting the voice of education back up to the strategic level of partnership, which is a real challenge. And potentially, I think representation on those kind of the boards around the L &I and Q &P and all of those kind of sub boards that sit just below the partnership. We need education represented there and we need to hear what the challenges are that people are facing on the ground. I know we've started, haven't we Steve? We looked at the current structure that we had in place and thought this isn't working anymore because we have representation from the associations and that's not broad enough anymore. So we spent some time kind of pulling that together and looking at how do we gather the voice of everyone across the system? So that is the early years settings, the alternative provisions, the LA maintained, all the trust schools. How do we get all of those in colleges? I mean, every time you think there's another one to just adding to think actually. The EOTAS kids, how do we make sure they're safeguarded and who represents them at this board? So we had our first meeting in, I want to say April, maybe March, was it March? Last term.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

I can't remember now. Back a little while back. Like you say, we've kind of looked at this together and really sort of looked to hone it down of, what are those really core components that we've got to make sure we get right and sort of honing that down to making sure we're able to communicate out from the partnership to all of those different agencies effectively, making sure we're getting those voices from that broad representation of agencies back into the partnership to influence and thirdly, having that key decision-making as part of that executive role to really put right at the heart of everything the partnership does, that voice front and center and essentially education working as a single agency alongside the local authority, police and health and those four key sectors working as one to safeguard children here. And I know when we've looked at it in terms of getting communicating out. Not saying it's perfect, but I think there are a lot of avenues.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (20:14.222)

I would say it's actually pretty good.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Yeah, we have things like the head teacher briefings, there's the DSL briefings that have been taking place this week. And there's always really good turnout for those, which is brilliant. So getting that communication out and obviously the business unit, a large focus of mine and my colleagues is about communication. So we kind of felt, okay, well, yeah, that's not too bad. But then it brings that, yeah, how do we bring the voices in, making sure we've got direct feeding into the partnership arrangements and really flagging, like say those key bits saying, actually, do you know what? This is working really well right now actually, this is, this is really not working. We're struggling with this. So yeah. So on that, know from what we've talked about, one of the really core components of your plan in moving forward was the education safeguarding forum and looking at a new way of actually how do we collaborate? How do we get those different sectors together? Yeah. And really making sure we are feeding back in. So like I say, we had the first meeting of that last term. Can you talk to us about that sort of who was there and what that involved? sadly I wasn't able to be at that event, but I know you were, you were really driving that forward.

And I think that the key challenge has been anything that we want to kind of achieve or find out about from schools. We've had to go to eight different places to be able to kind of gather that information. So I know definitely around MENDIP about six months ago, there was an issue with police notifications coming through with a significant delay. And I was able to go to CENT and ask them about that. And they were...

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (21:41.43)

able to come back with the information and say, actually, we're not seeing that in Yeovil or Taunton, we're just seeing that in the Mendeb area. And then you can take that back into the partnership and kind of tackle it as an example of the kind of thing that was really, really difficult. Cause then you have to go out to the other associations and then you go to the Matt CEO's group. And then you also need to contact earlier settings. And so the forum was designed to unite all those groups together and have representation from each of those groups feeding into it.

And we had the first one and the plan is that there will be the right people around the table to represent enough sectors of education and that will build over time. But the, chairs that group moving forward will take over this role next year and be the education exec on the safeguarding partnership. So the event was, we had about 21 different representatives. So if you think about each of those trusts that are represented and we have local authority colleagues, Katherine and Beth there, were business support there. It was a really lovely collaboration of people and actually the conversations that they were having about the challenges they face at school level really helped us to kind of think about what we were taking back into the partnership and looking at and developing. So there's been some ongoing work as a result of that which we'll feed out to the next one on the 10th of June. And we also had a number of people step forward and express interest in the role for next year, which we are absolutely delighted with. Because as you say, Steve, there's lots of ideas out there. People will have different experiences to bring to the table, and actually the next person will be able to at least have those functions in place to be able to communicate with schools and to take information from schools. And I think that was really something that when we met to talk about it was hugely important. It's setting up the next person to have an easier journey and to be able to start from a point of, well, if I need to do this, this is the group that I take it to, or if I need information to feed back in, can gather it from that group. So it was really, really important. And I know that it was important to you as well, because you were attending the previous meetings and there was representation, but there wasn't information. Information wasn't coming back in. And that's because the system had changed so much since that group had been designed.

So I feel really passionate about it. It's a really weird situation because you kind of set something up and then you step back from it and it's like anything, isn't it? It's all about sustainability into the future. But there are some really passionate and solid people working within that group who will push it forward and I'll be able to attend in a non-chair capacity and give my information to the new education rep, which I'm really excited about.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Yeah, definitely. don't know. I know from talking to you, you're really passionate to make sure that you have an opportunity now in this next term or last term of the academic year for that handover, like you say, actually impart that knowledge that you've got, which I think is, it's been huge and kind of very steep learning curve has taken on that pilot project and that role. And I think just picking up again on the forum, although we've talked about, okay, education is a huge beast. I don't know how many schools we have in Somerset. I should know. I'll top my head.

300 ish.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

I was going to say, it's about 300. So there is a question like, do you, how'd you get 300 schools in the room? And actually what we've talked about is you don't have to, what you need to do, particularly with the, the mats, for example, now you could have one person representing 10, 15, 20 or more schools. So that's the kind of the key bits sort of hone in on. actually from that, you can get some real key players in one room and represent a large sector there, including primary schools, secondary schools, you know, within that. think it's really exciting move moving forward and yeah, it'd be great to see how that develops.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (25:32.622)

I mean, I'm looking forward to it. think it's all functions, isn't it? Everything is about functions and systems. And if we can get the right functions and systems in place for education, then it will work and it will be successful moving forward. And that will give someone more capacity to think about actually what the role of education is at that strategic level, rather than having to kind of work through how to communicate effectively and how to gather information and how to kind of join up the dots as to who, who is it that I need to talk to you about this thing or who's already working on this that I'm not sure of. So there's a lot of kind of the smoother pathways, hopefully.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So with the next steps for that then, so you mentioned you have some people coming forward, they're keen to take up that mantle. again, I know when we were first talking about the forum, we were really keen to actually have ownership from the education sector say, actually, this is the person we wish to represent us. So what's the sort of next steps with that?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Yeah, so when we met Steve, we talked about it, didn't we, that we weren't sure how many people would come forward, but we are delighted that there have been multiple people putting their names into the hat. So what we've asked them to do is to, we've sent out the job description, asked them to write an expression of interest based on why they think they would be suited to the role. And the next step is to then send that out to as many education settings as we possibly can to do an election, just a really straightforward, simple, tick the box, who would you like to see represent you on this forum? We did talk about just having the people at the forum vote in terms of an election, but we actually thought if we could get a wider representation at this point with the forum being so new that that would potentially be a benefit. So we're going to try and keep it as fair and as equitable as we can. And I think that's really key, isn't it? It could be any number of people sat at home in their armchair going, I'd love to sit on the safeguarding partnership board.

And it would be really lovely for those people to know that there is a function whereby they can achieve that. And there is a structure in place to support the best person, the best voice coming forward. And I personally, I'm really excited. think even having one person step forward is a success in terms of the role now has a profile. It wasn't something that existed before. And now it is and people are interested, which I think is I'm taking that as a win.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Definitely. think it's great. I think it's great. There's such a passion to get this right. And I know you're really passionate about it. And I'm sure whoever sort of takes up that role will be passionate about it as well. And I know as well the existing executive members are keen to get this right. And I know that they've committed some funding for that position as well. So it's not going to be a full-time role, but yeah, there's a small amount of funding there to actually help to subsidize that commitment that's needed.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Absolutely. And I think it's a brave thing to do. think for the other partners at the exact level, they're opening their systems and their structures and just letting someone come in and see how they do things. And they're really open to taking that feedback and listening to a different perspective. And I think that's something that should also be recognized and valued. Not everyone has to do that and lots of systems kind of shut themselves down and keep themselves in house actually to ask for that feedback and to be so open to it, I think is a real benefit to us in Somerset.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So I guess kind of looking for next steps then. So looking to hopefully get somebody recruited into that post very shortly. Having that handover, that transition period with yourself before you can finally breathe a slight sigh of relief as we get towards the end of the academic year. With that, what would be your key messages that you'd want to sort of hand over to that person?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (29:12.49)

Ooh, I mean, that's a great question. I think potentially don't jump straight into things when you work. So I've been a head teacher in a DSL in school for a long time and director of safeguarding. So if something needs to be done, my viewpoint is, well, let's just crack on and do it. That's not how things work in much more complex, much more fractured organizations. And it's definitely not how things work when there are three or four agencies trying to work together at the same time.

So I think just make sure you ask the questions to get the information about who's already involved, who's already on that journey, who is halfway along this before you start then trying to come up with solution. I think one of my strengths is that I'm so solution focused. I just go, yeah, okay, fine, I can do that. Let's solve that problem. That doesn't work in a system like this. You have to get the pieces of the jigsaw first and work out, okay, so actually I need to touch base with that person because it has an HR implication or I need to touch base with that person because the police are already working in the zone. So you just need to make sure you take a minute, which I'm sure people with other personalities will, but just take a minute and find out all the information. Don't be afraid to ask, okay, is there anyone already doing a piece of this work? Because it's much easier to start from that point than it is to try and correct things that have gone a little bit awry along the way.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

I guess just kind of building on your experience over the last couple of years then, you know, looking to take this forward. Hopefully we're looking at this coming in through the Children's Welfare and Schools Bill shortly. What would you say either locally or to government around having education as a statutory safeguarding partner about some of the bits, you know, what do they really need to consider? How do they really make it work and make sure we've got education at the heart of everything that we do?

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

I mean, if I could turn back time, Steve, I would say don't fracture the system in the way that you have. The education system, because I think there's, as soon as we split that governance away from local authorities, we lost any of the levers within education to affect that kind of change. So I think essentially the current government is just working with how to put that right. And I'm all on board for trust. I thought it was a great thing and a great idea, but the governance structures just don't match. So without those, it's really hard to kind of

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager (31:08.011)

as in the education system.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education (31:32.142)

to affect those changes. People have choices about what they do and how they do it. But I would say, you're asking me all the tough questions.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

I am. I'm sorry. That's what I'm here for.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Yeah, I think just keep trying and make sure that possibly what we need to identify is the function by which we find the person. I think the easy win, and we've talked about this ourselves and I've talked about it with Catherine and Beth and with Amelia and lots of other people working at local authority, think the easy fit is to put someone who already works for local authority in representing education, but I don't think that's the right fit. I think it's really important for me that it remains someone who is serving within a role as DSL, so that you're experiencing the challenges that schools have to face. Lots of things that we ask our schools to do are based in the theory, and actually when you try and put those into practice, it can be quite difficult. So having someone who is aware of that practice brings advantages and challenges. It allows you to see how difficult that will be to implement and actually how maybe that's not the right fit, but it also brings the challenge of you being further away from the other partners and how they see things. Do you understand what I mean by that? Does that make sense?

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager (32:53.368)

Yeah, no, it does. Definitely. it's, I think it's exciting times, isn't it? think it's challenging. Like we've been saying, it's complex, it's challenging. but I do think it's exciting. And I think we're in a moment of change for the better of these things.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

And I'm hugely proud that we've been ahead of the curve on that. Definitely. You know, there's lots of local authorities that haven't gone anywhere near this yet. And we've had a good bash at it and we've learned a lot and we're now ready to kind of look at moving that forward, which is really positive, isn't it?

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager (32:53.368)

Well, I think that's a great note to end on if you're happy with that. But Natalie, thank you so much. Not just for today and for the recording. And it's always great to talk to you, but also for the work that you've been doing over the last couple of years. Because I know you've been absolutely passionate about this. I know it was a very steep learning curve for you and everybody, I think involved. But I do feel like coming out from this, we're in a really strong position from what you've learned and the experience that you can impart. And I say, I know it's something that you're really keen to do and make this a success moving forward. So thank you so much for everything. It's very appreciated.

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Thank you for all your support throughout the journey and local authority colleagues who've talked to me so much about actually how safeguarding works on a different level. thank you.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

All right, well, take care and we're just about to have a school holiday. So I hope you have a good break. And yeah, I look forward to seeing you in the final term of this academic year, where hopefully we've got somebody in place and we can start the handover to you. Love it. All right, take care. Bye bye. 

Natalie Hanna – SSCP Executive Member for Education

Bye.