SI Cannock & District invited two speakers to their first meeting of 2015: Roz Randall, Specialist Education Safeguarding Trainer, Staffordshire County Council and SI Midland Chase Region President, Carol Bailey. President of SI Cannock & District Janis Lomas was delighted to welcome both speakers and the many guests who had joined them, many of them from other Soroptimist Clubs in the Region.
Roz began by outlining the many aspects of her role. Amongst those she trains within the wide safeguarding umbrella are school staff; School Governors; horse riding schools; dentist staff; newly qualified teachers; Fire Service staff; children’s care home staff.
Child sexual exploitation is the priority area this year, not just for the Staffordshire Safeguarding Children’s Board but for Staffordshire Police too – working with health, education and social services. Roz stressed the importance of agencies sharing information as this is how those at risk or those already suffering abuse become known. Roz and Tamworth Prevention Against High Risk Behaviour group will be providing training around recognition of Child Sexual Exploitation [CSE] risks for hotel, takeaway and theme park staff as well as for taxi drivers and doormen at clubs. SI Cannock members were particularly pleased to hear this as they had worked with local taxi drivers two years ago when they were raising awareness of trafficking and child sexual exploitation.
FGM [Female Genital Mutilation] is one of the issues which SI clubs in Midland Chase Region are currently concerned with in terms of awareness raising. Roz praised Soroptimists saying that the more who work on getting information out, the better. From April of this year FGM will be one of SSCB awareness sessions she will be delivering, though it is already high on the agenda of the Police and the Safeguarding Board. The number of referrals is growing as more people become aware of the signs; there were 12 referrals in Staffordshire last year, already in 2015 there have been concerns raised. Roz stressed that cases of FGM and of child sexual exploitation occur in ALL of our towns in Staffordshire and that we should all be vigilant. She feels, as do Soroptimists, that if just one girl is saved from this horrendous treatment then all of the awareness raising will have been well worth the time and effort it takes. She encouraged us to keep it on the agenda and get information into schools and Colleges.
Region President Carol Bailey began by telling everyone how saddened she is that agencies still don’t share information as a matter of course, remembering the Maria Colwell case in 1973, when agencies said it would never happen again! President Carol praised all club members for their work raising awareness about issues such as FGM and trafficking which does result in changes happening, however slowly. This work is part of SIs Programme Action and Carol wants all clubs to focus on this work – which is at the heart of Soroptimism – this year; her theme for the year is PAPA: Passionate About Programme Action. She reminded members that they are all able to attend any of the UK Programme Action meetings which are held quarterly and hope some of them might attend during the coming year.
SI Cannock & District Programme Action Officer Dawn Jacobs-Clutton gave the vote of thanks. She told both speakers how interesting and informative their presentations had been and said that the Cannock club’s Programme Action Team will be discussing these matters in depth at their next meeting.
Photo: l to r: Roz Randall, Specialist Education Safeguarding Trainer, Staffordshire County Council; Janis Lomas, President S Cannock & District; Carol Bailey, President Midland Chase Region.