The SSCP Training Team have been working hard in the background to make sure we are always improving the safeguarding training and wider opportunities to all professionals across the County, through reviewing feedback and evaluations from courses, exploring new opportunities and utilising new technologies as they arise.
We wanted to take this opportunity then to update you on some of the things we have in development for next year.
Training Costs
We always strive to ensure that the cost of attending training is fair and kept to an absolute minimum to ensure accessibility for all agencies, as well as in line with other Partnerships and training providers around the country.
Any income raised by attendance at training events is invested into the further development of the training offer, which includes the ability to work with partner agencies to share their expertise and support multiagency collaboration, allowing us to bring to you one of the largest free training offers nationally, which is available to any agency working within Somerset.
Over the last few years we have not increased the cost for training in order to support agencies during challenging financial times, however as you’ll be away costs for venue hire, refreshments and materials has continued to increase significantly over this time. Due to this from 1st April 2025 we are needing to increase the price of our core training offer (the Introduction to CP, 2 Day Advanced CP and Advanced CP Update courses) by £10
We will of course continue to bring you the vast majority of training absolutely free of charge – so make sure you access what’s on offer!
Continued CPD Accreditation for SSCP Training
Earlier this year we were proud to be awarded formal CPD Accreditation for our 2 Day Advanced Child Protection Training.
The CPD Accreditation is a nationally recognised scheme which involves independent review of our material and assures the training material delivered is of the highest quality and is recognised by professional bodies as formal CPD Accredited training, often counting towards annual professional registration.
The work hasn’t stopped there though, and we’ve now gained CPD Accreditation for all of our Basic Awareness Cascade Packs and in the process of gaining the accreditation for all of our other courses for 2025.
Supporting the Voluntary & Community Sector
The VCFSE sector plays a vital role in supporting children, young people and families and takes many forms, from larger commissioned services, to small groups run by local volunteers.
The SSCP has been undertaking a lot of work over the last year to ensure it is listening and responding to the needs of the VCFSE sector in relation to safeguarding children and one theme that has arisen in all of the consultations we have undertaken is that for some small organisations the cost of training has placed a strain on their finances – meaning for some they have not been able to access high quality local safeguarding training. To respond to this, from 1st April 2025 the SSCP will be offering a 50% discount on all training to small community based voluntary sector organisations (with an annual income of under £5,000) and registered Charities.
Now when registering a new account there is an option to choose ‘Charity’ which will allow you to include your Charity number and gain access to the discount.
We’ll be spending some time between now and April reviewing all existing account and amending where we can, but if you feel your organisation is eligible for the discount and your account hasn’t already been amended please get in touch with us at SSCPTraining@somerset.gov.uk
Changes to the Basic Awareness Cascade Packs
The SSCP Basic Awareness Cascade Packs have expanded over the last few years, originally being one pack aimed at supporting schools to fulfil their obligations under Keeping Children Safe in Education to provide annual safeguarding updates to all staff, and now encompassing different packs for Primary, Secondary & SEND and Residential Settings, as well as the Non-Education pack aimed to provide updates to wider agencies, including the VCFSE sector. Last year for the first time we also bought you the Basic Awareness eLearning to allow those who were unable to join in-house face to face training to still gain the updates needed, including a new ‘Governors’ eLearning module.
Over the last year we have spent time revising and updating the packs, as well as evaluating their use across the County and ensuring that all professionals are keeping up to date with both national and local changes. What this has shown us is that some agencies utilise the packs and are kept informed, but that there are gaps and some agencies not using it to upskill and update their staff or volunteers.
Another thing we have been conscious of is that the packs are created and updated once a year, and some times a lot can happen within that year, meaning that things could change and you wouldn’t be receiving the latest information.
We wanted therefore to look at a way to make the packs more accessible for all agencies, ensuring consistent information and messaging was going out across the whole County, as well as ensure the packs could be updated as and when any significant changes occurred.
From the 1st April 2025 anyone who attends either the 2 Day Advanced CP or Advanced CP Update courses will be provided access to the pack absolutely free of charge for the whole time your SSCP training certification is valid (2yrs).
We are also currently working with web-developers to hopefully bring it to you online which will mean that rather than downloading the presentation and potentially waiting for up to a year for updates, you’ll be guaranteed to always access the latest information – watch this space!
