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Overview
School Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL) will receive information from Devon and Cornwall police when an officer has attended an incident where children are involved, present or live in the property and there is a safeguarding concern for that child.
There are a number of different ways that the school may receive this information:
Public Protection Notices (PPN)
Every morning Police Central Safeguarding Team researchers review safeguarding risk assessments relating to Children from the previous 24 hours.
If appropriate to do so, this information is then shared with social care, health and education partners via email. The PPN is sent to our DES administration team who then forward the information to the school that the child attends within 24 hours.
The PPN contains information as submitted by frontline officers but has been briefly assessed by CST (Central Safeguarding Team) researchers who if capacity allows will add further research about recent relevant information on Police local systems if appropriate.
The Devon Children’s Front Door team review all of the PPN information.
Public Protection Notices (PPN) grading
A PPN form should be submitted whenever a police officer identifies a person (adult or child) with a safeguarding concern. This PPN is then graded High, Medium or Low to indicate the police view of the level of safeguarding risk, (green, amber or red). Red, amber and 3 green PPNs in 3 months (escalating concern) are reviewed by the CST (Central Safeguarding Team) who conduct and include additional relevant research and decide if information needs to be shared with partners and with whom – typically this is with Devon Children’s Front Door, Health and Education pathways.
Recognising the impact on children – all DA related PPNs will be shared with partners with very rare exception.
Designated safeguarding leads who are involved with a child through Early Help may be sent a PPN from Devon Children’s Front Door.
Operation Encompass
An email alert system between police and education; Operation Encompass will use a secure email address for each school to send key adults in the school a notification that a DA incident has occurred which may have impacted on a child. This is sent as soon as the attending officer submits a DA related PPN, linking a child and records to a school. This is an early alert system and should be followed by further detail in the form of the PPN via the DES administration team.
Things to remember
- It is important to make a log of the information received on the child’s safeguarding file, as this helps to build the picture of what life looks like for the child
- PPNs must not be downloaded to the safeguarding file at this information is confidential and ‘owned’ by the police
- Schools should record a summary of the key information and include any log numbers or crime numbers to enable this information to be identified in the future
- This information should only be shared with key staff as and when appropriate
- This summary of information can be shared alongside the child’s safeguarding chronology if and when a child moves education provision
- If the child is accessing alternative education, it is the schools responsibility to share this information if appropriate
- Police information should not be shared as part of data request unless consent has been granted by the police. Please contact your data protection officer (DPO) for guidance and support
Further information
Operation Encompass – includes links to online training.
Devon and Cornwall Police