Page 84 - SEN115 - November/December 2021

Safeguarding
SEND and Safeguarding:
more than four bullet points
Sara Alston gives an in-depth analysis of the additional safeguarding vulnerabilities of children with SEND.
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2021 uses just four bullet points (para 185) to remind us of the additional safeguarding vulnerabilities of children with SEND. However, if we are to ensure their effective
safeguarding, we need to probe these points more deeply. To start, we need to be conscious that children with SEND are not a single group with identical needs. Ensuring their safeguarding requires us to consider their individual needs, strengths and difficulties. Effective safeguarding is dependent on knowing and listening to our children.
• Communication barriers and difficulties in managing or reporting these challenges.
It is important that a child’s voice is heard, regardless of how it is expressed. Many children with SEND have communication difficulties. Any child who is dependent on others to support them to express their needs is at risk of being misinterpreted or silenced. This is a particular issue as schools and parents often need to advocate for children, explaining and supporting their communications with other practitioners, especially when children use alternative communications strategies or devices.
Behaviour is communication, particularly when we lack or cannot use words to express our needs or worries. Changes in behaviour are a key indicator of a safeguarding need. All changes in a child’s behaviour should be considered and questioned.
• Children being more prone to peer group isolation or bullying (including prejudice-based bullying) than other children.
Children with SEND’s difficulties with communication and interaction, SEHM and/or physical needs and difficulties can mean that they can struggle to form and maintain social relationships. They may misunderstand socially appropriate behaviour and conventions – both in themselves and others. Their learning, behavioural and physical needs may make them appear different. This can be exacerbated by the support they receive in school causing them to stand out from their peers, leading to bullying, abuse and risks of exploitation, both in the physical and online worlds.
Many with SEND struggle with face-to-face interactions, so online interactions can seem easier to manage, because this is time to think before responding, you don’t have to deal
“Changes in behaviour are a key indicator of a safeguarding need.”
with information from facial expressions or body language, there are clear topics for interaction. Yet they can lack the understanding to differentiate between friendship and bullying. These difficulties can be increased where children struggle with the difference between fact and fiction. Where a relationship is formed within a computer game, it can be hard for a child to identify or understand when there is a move beyond the game, that activities that might be acceptable, if not age appropriate, within the game are not acceptable within the real world. Children may act without understanding the implications of their actions and can be incited to inappropriate or even dangerous behaviour leading to involvement in violence, child criminal exploitation, sexualised behaviour (including the sending and sharing of nudes and semi-nudes) and vulnerability to radicalisation. Many perpetrators deliberately target these children.
■ Safeguarding the family.
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