Safeguarding

Safeguarding at Kent and keeping students safe

Our safeguarding policies are designed to protect children and adults at risk of harm on our campuses or involved in any related University activity including safeguarding for apprenticeship students in employment. Our full safeguarding policy can be found here

The University has a responsibility to keep children and adults at risk safe to take appropriate safeguarding action in relation to signs and symptoms of abuse or neglect, which could include:

• Physical
• Psychological or emotional
• Sexual
• Domestic Violence
• Financial
• Neglect
• Discriminatory
• Institutional
• Modern slavery

What is Safeguarding?

Statutory Safeguarding: applies to children (those under 18) and adults with care and support needs. Where you are concerned about abuse or the wellbeing of such individuals you MUST report any concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Officers

Prevent (statutory) duty: a key aspect of the Prevent Duty affecting Higher Education is to ensure members of the University community that may be vulnerable to radicalisation or being drawn into terrorism are passed without unnecessary delay to trained professionals external to the University who are qualified to assess and manage such situations. You MUST report any concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Officers who are also trained to discern the safeguarding, wellbeing and Prevent matters arising from referrals.

Reporting a concern

University staff, students and those external to the university may have a cause for concern with regard to a member of the university or individual who the university has engaged with.

All safeguarding concerns can be reported to safeguarding@kent.ac.uk this email address is monitored Monday to Friday 9am till 5pm. If you concerns requires immediate attention and it is outside of the monitoring hours then you should contact security@kent.ac.uk who will contact the Student Services Duty Manager.

The safeguarding team are trained to respond to safeguarding reports and will escalate concerns if required. The Designated Safeguarding Lead and Deputy Leads keep records and reports in secure locations.

When reporting a concern if you are a member of staff you should contact your local designated safeguarding officer within your professional service or division and a list of who they are and contact details can be found here.

If you are not from the University or if you are an employer or a student or apprentice please email safeguarding@kent.ac.uk

PREVENT

The prevent duty forms section 26 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 which places a statutory duty for Universities to have due regard to prevent people from being drawn in to terrorism. Prevent forms a core part of safeguarding at the University.
Prevent has three main objectives:
· Respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat faced from those who promote it.
· Prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and give them advice and support.
· Work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation

Reporting PREVENT Concerns

If you have a concerns about an individual you are considering to be at risk a Designated Safeguarding Officer would be your first point of contact. Any other questions around PREVENT should be passed to David Powell( Policy Adviser to the Vice Chancellor) via prevent@kent.ac.uk
Information on PREVENT can be found here

Student Support and Wellbeing

The designated Safeguarding team are all based in our Student Support and Wellbeing Team. Find out more about the work of Student Support and Wellbeing here. The team offer support to students with disabilities, accessibility needs, mental health concerns and wellbeing issues. All students and apprenticeships can access support from SSW by emailing kentSSW@kent.ac.uk