Operation Encompass
Our school is an Operation Encompass school.
Operation Encompass aims to ensure that schools have timely information about all police attended incidents of domestic abuse, enabling staff to support children appropriately.
Operation Encompass
Priory is an Operation Encompass school.
Operation Encompass is a unique Police and Education project, supported by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. Its aim is to safeguard and support children and young people who are involved in or affected by incidents involving domestic abuse.
The project allows for an early intervention safeguarding partnership which ensures that a child/ young person’s school/ college is informed, prior to the start of the next school day, that there has been an incident of Domestic Abuse or any incident to which the child/ young person has been exposed in which they are considered to be vulnerable to harm, and which might then have an impact on them in school/ college the following day.
Each school/ college is informed of all such incidents, not just those where an offence can be identified or those which are graded as high risk. The partnership recognises that all incidents of Domestic Abuse/ vulnerability can be harmful to children and young people.
This information will be shared throughout the year, including holidays and weekends. Information will only be shared with the school/ college by the police where it is identified that a young person was present, witnessed or was involved in a domestic abuse incident.
Nominated members of staff, known as a Key Adults, have been trained to liaise with the police.
At Priory School our Key Adults are Miss Howells (Designated safeguarding lead) and Miss Iveson (Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead).
They will be able to use information that has been shared with them, in confidence, to ensure that the school makes provision for possible difficulties experienced by children or their families.
The Key Adults will keep this information confidential and will only share it on a need-to-know basis, for instance, to teaching staff for the child or young person. It will not be shared with other school students.
Since Operation Encompass was first introduced in Sussex it has proved very effective in providing appropriate and timely support to young people affected by domestic abuse. This initiative has been implemented in the East Sussex Police area.
If you would like some more information about it, you can view it online at Schools: Operation Encompass
Operation Encompass does not replace or supersede existing protocols, or singularly address child welfare. The process should always be followed in conjunction with current safeguarding procedures and practitioners’ guidelines and is designed to reinforce safeguarding and ensure children’s well-being is of paramount importance.
We are keen to offer the best support possible for our pupils and a recent review of Operation Encompass showed that it is beneficial and supportive for all those involved.
