DBS checks

[Jon Bartlett]

Hi,

As part of reviewing child protection policies, I've been looking at the DBS (formerly CRB) situation in more detail.  Based on the DBS guidance[0] and variety of flowcharts[1], the situation for SR mentors is as follows:

Enhanced DBS check with Barred List check - Eligible *only* if working in the same school at least once a week or 4 times in 30 days AND unsupervised.

Enhanced DBS check - Eligible *only* if working in the same school at least once a week or 4 times in 30 days, regardless of supervision.

Standard DBS check - Eligible.

Note that "eligible" does not mean "legally required", just that it is illegal to apply for a DBS check on an illegible person.  The organisation is meant to decide policy based on risk assessment for each role.  Checks are free for volunteers but it should be noted that organisations should not adopt a 'just in case' policy.

To draft a policy, some information is needed:

1. How often do mentors visit teams?

2. Is it desirable for mentors to be allowed unsupervised with teams? If not, the Team Leader Agreement could be amended to require supervision at all times.

3. A Standard Check will return unspent convictions only.  Is this likely to be useful for SR purposes?

Thanks,

Jon

[0]https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/311451/DBS_guide_to_eligibility_v4.pdf

[1]http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/studentregistry/staff/grad/EDM/DBS.pdf

[Andrew Cottrell]

Hi Jon 

>in the same school

Does that mean, theoretically, if I went to thirty schools in one month, I wouldn't be eligible?

I would say mentors should be aiming at a visit a week, this doesn't always happen, but then there are situations where mentoring has happened more than once in a week - but generally a rare occasion.

I've never had a situation where I've needed to be unsupervised, but there have been times when the teacher has left the room etc - but I would've though that's down to the teachers digression 

I think having something there, even a standard check, is still a good move. 

Cheers,

Andy

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[Jon Bartlett]

>in the same school

Does that mean, theoretically, if I went to thirty schools in one month, I wouldn't be eligible?

That's correct, it has to be in the same place to be eligible.

 

I would say mentors should be aiming at a visit a week, this doesn't always happen, but then there are situations where mentoring has happened more than once in a week - but generally a rare occasion.

I've never had a situation where I've needed to be unsupervised, but there have been times when the teacher has left the room etc - but I would've though that's down to the teachers digression 

Supervision in these cases is the responsibility of the school, so that would be up to the teacher (and school policy).

 

I think having something there, even a standard check, is still a good move. 

If the intention is for a weekly visit mentors will probably need an enhanced check (even if it doesn't work out weekly in most cases).

Thanks for the response.

[Peter Law]

Hi,

Jon wrote:
> 1. How often do mentors visit teams?

As Andy noted, the intention is that we get to teams once a week where we can.

> 2. Is it desirable for mentors to be allowed unsupervised with teams? If
> not, the Team Leader Agreement could be amended to require supervision at
> all times.

Again as Andy noted, this probably happens on occasion, but it's not
the norm nor what we want. Just as we require supervision at Tech
Days, the expectation would be that the teachers are always around in
the school context too. At a guess, this information may not be
published anywhere, and probably should be.

A more interesting question might be to examine what happens if we're
meeting a team outside of a school. There are two instances of this I
can think of:
* Meeting a school based team during holidays or at weekends
* Meeting a non-school based team (there have been at least three of
these, I expect at least one will be around next year)

To expand on the last point, we've had in the past a team of
home-schooled entrants (though I don't know whether they were
mentored), and this year I mentored a team of Explorer Scouts. (GMR
being the third I could think of).

> 3. A Standard Check will return unspent convictions only. Is this likely to
> be useful for SR purposes?

I'd think this probably wasn't useful, but IANAL.

Thanks,
Peter

[Jon Bartlett]

Just as we require supervision at Tech

Days, the expectation would be that the teachers are always around in
the school context too. At a guess, this information may not be
published anywhere, and probably should be.

 

This makes sense. The best place for this would probably be in the team leader agreement, with a bit added to the team leader section of the website too.

A more interesting question might be to examine what happens if we're
meeting a team outside of a school. There are two instances of this I
can think of:
* Meeting a school based team during holidays or at weekends

 

Even if unsupervised, this would still be covered by the Enhanced DBS check, assuming the meeting is *not* in the school AND less than once a week or 4 times in 30 days.  Presumably school holiday meetings would be more of an occasional thing.

 

* Meeting a non-school based team (there have been at least three of
these, I expect at least one will be around next year)

To expand on the last point, we've had in the past a team of
home-schooled entrants (though I don't know whether they were
mentored), and this year I mentored a team of Explorer Scouts. (GMR
being the third I could think of).

This is a bit more tricky and probably depends on supervision.  Presumably the team leader in the Scout case would be checked and could therefore supervise.  Home schoolers would probably be covered in the same way but I'll need to do some checking on that.

It looks like Enhanced Disclosure will be the way to go in most cases.

Thanks,

Jon  

[Peter Law]

I wrote:
>> A more interesting question might be to examine what happens if we're
>> meeting a team outside of a school. There are two instances of this I
>> can think of:
>> * Meeting a school based team during holidays or at weekends

Jon wrote:
> Even if unsupervised, this would still be covered by the Enhanced DBS check,
> assuming the meeting is *not* in the school AND less than once a week or 4
> times in 30 days. Presumably school holiday meetings would be more of an
> occasional thing.

Ok. Yes, this would indeed be occasional.

>> * Meeting a non-school based team (there have been at least three of
>> these, I expect at least one will be around next year)
>>
>> To expand on the last point, we've had in the past a team of
>> home-schooled entrants (though I don't know whether they were
>> mentored), and this year I mentored a team of Explorer Scouts. (GMR
>> being the third I could think of).
>
>
> This is a bit more tricky and probably depends on supervision. Presumably
> the team leader in the Scout case would be checked and could therefore
> supervise.

Indeed, scout leaders all get checked. It's also fairly common to
check all the parents as well so they can come on camps/help as
needed.

Thanks,
Peter

[Harry Cutts]

Hi,

On Sunday, 18 May 2014 19:40:46 UTC+1, Jon Bartlett wrote:

Presumably the team leader in the Scout case would be checked and could therefore supervise.  Home schoolers would probably be covered in the same way but I'll need to do some checking on that.

As someone who was home educated myself, I would not assume that anyone involved in the home school team would be checked. There is no requirement (or even, AFAIK, encouragement) for someone teaching at home to have a DBS check. (A possible exception is if they are a paid tutor, but that's unlikely to be the case here.) Unless they're involved in something else like the Scouts, they're unlikely to be checked. They are likely to be related to one or more of the students, however, if that counts for anything.

Education Otherwise [0] provides resources concerning home education and home schooling. I did a quick search on their site, and found a couple of PDFs. In "Guidelines for Local Authorities" [1], section 4.8 may be helpful. A quote: "[Parents will] be responsible for ensuring that those whom they engage are suitable to have access to children." On page 18 of "Prospectus for Improving Support to Home Educating Families", it states that "Up to date CRB checks should also be available to view on request," when referring to officers of the local authority.

Hope this helps.

Harry Cutts

[0] http://educationotherwise.net/
[1] http://educationotherwise.net/attachments/article/125/Elective%20Home%20Education%20-%20Guidelines%20for%20LAs.pdf

[Harry Cutts]

On Tuesday, 20 May 2014 12:32:02 UTC+1, Harry Cutts wrote:

On page 18 of "Prospectus for Improving Support to Home Educating Families", it states that "Up to date CRB checks should also be available to view on request," when referring to officers of the local authority.

Drat, forgot the link [2].

Harry Cutts

[2] http://educationotherwise.net/attachments/article/151/Prospectus%20For%20Improving%20Support%20to%20Home%20Educating%20Families%200409.pdf

[Jon Bartlett]

First draft is attached, though definitely needs some more work.  It appears that Enhanced DBS checks for mentors should do the job for everyone, including for home school teams.

Comments welcome as always.

Thanks,

Jon

--

[Jon Bartlett]

If there are no more comments on this I'd like to complete it this evening and get things finalised.  Presumably the policy then needs committee approval?  I'm concerned that the stuff on the wiki mentoring page is far out of date at this point.

Jon

[Peter Law]

Hi,

Just noticed this lounging at the bottom of my inbox, and since no-one
else has yet responded thought it would be worth adding some comments.

Jon wrote:
> It appears
> that Enhanced DBS checks for mentors should do the job for everyone,
> including for home school teams.

Cool.

> First draft is attached, though definitely needs some more work.

Looks ok so far.

> Any volunteer who has contact with teams is expected to complete
> a Volunteer Information Form
> [not too sure about this bit, the intention would be have a record of
> who does stuff with teams to ensure they are appropriately checked].

I think this is a reasonable aim, we just need to make sure it's as
easy as possible for people to fill it out to ensure that that
happens.

What are the mechanics of DBS checks at this point? In particular, how
does SR get to know that a person has 'passed'? (is this paper or
electronic?)
Would it be worth trying to do these at the same time to reduce the
effort required?

Does the policy document want to link to the other relevant documents
in this area? For example, the child protection policy? Even if it's
just a single page on the website which then has links onwards to all
the useful documents, I think we need to make it as easy as possible
to a) find the documents, and, b) know they're current.

Following on from that, what delivery/storage mechanism had you
planned for these -- trac? PDFs in the srweb repo? (if so, where would
the sources be?) something else?
What level of protection against editing do we want (eg: the website
currently just needs at most three people with logins to +1 it to go
live)?

Jon also wrote:
> If there are no more comments on this I'd like to complete it this evening
> and get things finalised. Presumably the policy then needs committee
> approval? I'm concerned that the stuff on the wiki mentoring page is far
> out of date at this point.

Hrm, maybe I'm a bit late then, but I've not seen any further activity
that I recall -- did I miss something?
As for committee approval, that seems appropriate, though I'd hope
that everyone who currently considers themselves an SR volunteer would
also want to agree to the new documents (since presumably we'd all be
held to the same level).

Peter

[Jon Bartlett]

Hi,

>I think this is a reasonable aim, we just need to make sure it's as
>easy as possible for people to fill it out to ensure that that
>happens.

Probably an online form would be fine for that, would really just be looking for name, address and contact details.

 

>What are the mechanics of DBS checks at this point? In particular, how
>does SR get to know that a person has 'passed'? (is this paper or
>electronic?)

First off, SR would need to get forms from an 'umbrella body' (Andy Busse mentioned that STEMnet may be able to do this, otherwise there are plenty around).  These are passed on the applicant and completed.  SR then checks identity documents and sends the forms off to the umbrella body, who processes it.  A paper certificate is then sent to the applicant who shows it to SR.  

This would need to be repeated annually, so a better option would be for the applicant to subscribe to the DBS online update service [1] when they get the application form.  This is free for volunteers and means they can be checked online, don't need to fill in any more forms, and are 'portable' should the mentor need a DBS check for any other jobs/voluntary work/etc.  Some people might already have these available if they do other work involving DBS checks (such as me, as a teacher). 

 

It's worth noting that the DBS certificate is a list of things someone has been convicted of/investigated for, rather than a pass or fail.  Whoever is responsible at SR would then make the decision on whether the person can be a mentor or not.

>Would it be worth trying to do these at the same time to reduce the
>effort required?

Probably, it could tie in with some sort of mentor induction doing for newbies that way.  Up to whoever has to organise the physical forms and ID checks I would imagine.

 

>Does the policy document want to link to the other relevant documents
>in this area? For example, the child protection policy? Even if it's
>just a single page on the website which then has links onwards to all
>the useful documents, I think we need to make it as easy as possible
>to a) find the documents, and, b) know they're current.

Probably a single page for Safeguarding Policy that links to all the other bits would be best.  Each document should have a "reviewed on ...." bit at the bottom, which could also be written on the page.

 

>Following on from that, what delivery/storage mechanism had you
>planned for these -- trac? PDFs in the srweb repo? (if so, where would
>the sources be?) something else?

I hadn't thought of a plan for this as yet, so advice is needed from someone more knowledgeable than me.  I'm just knocking them out in Word and converting to PDF at the moment.

 

What level of protection against editing do we want (eg: the website
currently just needs at most three people with logins to +1 it to go
live)?

Policy document approval would be the responsibility of the 'named person'/committee member/charity trustee nominated to have responsibility for child protection I think.  They certainly shouldn't be editable without agreement from the people officially responsible.

 

>Hrm, maybe I'm a bit late then, but I've not seen any further activity
>that I recall -- did I miss something?

Nothing missed, I just didn't get around to finishing them off due to outside pressures.  Summer holiday starts today, so I will get them done shortly.

 

>As for committee approval, that seems appropriate, though I'd hope
>that everyone who currently considers themselves an SR volunteer would
>also want to agree to the new documents (since presumably we'd all be
>held to the same level).

I would also hope everyone would agree and should be aware of the contents of the documents.  The approval bit is really because someone has to be responsible and the SC is currently the closest thing to SR Leadership.  Formal approval would be the job of trustees if the charity formation goes ahead. 

Jon

[Jon Bartlett]

Forgot:

[1]https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service