SEN WELFARE AND WELLBEING
Managing safeguarding and mental health in a pandemic Riverston School are addressing the mental health of their children post the pandemic
Safeguarding underpins all aspects of school life. It’s implications on a child’s learning and social and emotional development are without question far reaching. Developing a robust culture of vigilance and awareness is vital. Staff must understand that all concerns, no matter how small, should be raised and examined within their wider context. Safeguarding in a Special Educational Needs setting is particularly complex. Parenting styles that would normally be acceptable and common place with a neurotypical child can be cause for concern when a student has more complex needs. Meeting the needs of a young person with SEN often requires parents and carers to robustly support every aspect of their child’s life. These children are often unable
to look after themselves in the way your average teenager can, and so safeguarding concerns can quickly escalate from seemingly fairly innocuous circumstances. Mental health is fast becoming the biggest safeguarding issue in young people. The lockdowns and continuing spectre of COVID hanging over us have meant that anxiety levels are sky-high. As students settle back into the routine of school we are now starting to see mental health issues take hold. Many have lost the safe feelings that the predictably of pre-COVID life brought. The loss of certainty is one of our biggest casualties. The realization that things can suddenly change in an instant
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and everything we have come to know as normal can be pulled out from underneath us in a second. The biggest challenge for safeguarding in schools today, is trying to contain the loss of control we all feel, and so make our young people feel safe again. In a school that has children with autism, who desperately need security, safety and predictability, that is easier said than done. As both their external and internal worlds of structure and order start to erode, so does their ability to remain grounded and feel safe. Intrusive thoughts, low mood and anxiety-driven meltdowns are common place, school avoidance is on the rise and those who have historically struggled with social integration have taken ten steps backwards. The challenge is huge, and requires us to collectively see safeguarding as more than just identifying neglect, or managing a sensitive disclosure. We have to identify those intrinsic areas where children have lost out in their social and emotional growth. It is these intangible skills and coping strategies that are now underdeveloped, and so risk preventing young people from becoming adults able to effectively engage with the world around them. GUY BAKER Director of Welfare and Wellbeing & Designated Safeguarding Lead at Riverston School www.riverstonschool.co.uk
