King's College London

Lead-authored by Dr Mary Baginsky, Senior Research Fellow at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce, a new book examines the safeguarding role of schools and how this sits with recent policy changes, including the Academies and Free Schools programme. How are schools managing their safeguarding responsibilities, which now include complex and interrelated concerns such as online safety, mental ill-health, radicalisation, criminal exploitation and peer-on-peer sexual abuse? In particular, to what extent are multi-agency approaches in this field (involving schools, police, NHS and local authority children’s social care services and others) proving successful in the current policy context?

Researchers based their book on interviews with over 300 people, including over 200 working in schools, and surveys of many more, so establishing a good understanding of how schools and other agencies are striving to continue to meet their safeguarding responsibilities.

Co-author, Dr Carl Purcell, introduces the central themes and concerns of the book in a blog.

The research on which the book is based was funded by the ESRC: Supporting and engaging schools in decision-making and multi-agency working for the protection and safeguarding of children. The research forms part of the Children's Research Programme at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King's.

There will be an invitation-only in-person book launch at King’s on 28 September 2022. For anyone particularly interested please get in touch, as we are keeping a reserve list for this event.

This publication

Baginsky, M., Driscoll, J., Purcell, C., Manthorpe, J., & Hickman, B. (2022). Protecting and Safeguarding Children in Schools: A Multi-agency Approach. Bristol: Policy Press.