New guidance: safeguarding children from sexual violence, child sexual exploitation and harmful practices (Metropolitan Police)

Children safeguarding

The Metropolitan Police has published new guidance for schools and colleges to help them safeguard children from sexual violence, child sexual exploitation and harmful practices. The guidance covers a range of safeguarding concerns including female genital mutilation (FGM), breast ironing/flattening, honour related abuse, forced marriage and child abuse linked to faith or belief.

Police support

Following a recent consultation, it became apparent that schools and colleges were not aware of the extent of police support available for specific safeguarding matters, and how best to deal with them. This new guidance was developed to address this gap, and to complement the existing statutory guidance, including Keeping Children Safe in Education and Working Together to Safeguard Children.

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Further, with the introduction of compulsory relationships education (for primary pupils) and relationships and sex education (for secondary pupils) from September 2020, this guidance aims to support schools in enhancing their curriculum by providing specialist advice on handling sensitive issues, understanding how to respond to disclosures of sexual violence and exploitation from pupils and helping to identify possible warning signs of abuse.

The full guidance can be found here.