What if I am not sure if abuse is happening or not?
If you suspect it but they haven’t said anything to you, you can:
- Keep talking with the pupil – they may open up when they are ready
- Keep a diary – noting your concerns, patterns of the pupil’s behaviour, dates, times, etc
- Keep a diary – noting your concerns, patterns of the pupil’s behaviour, dates, times, etc
- Get someone else’s perspective – discuss confidentially with trusted people, so friends, family, colleague, DIA helpdesk, a counsellor from one of the respected charities who specialise in this area
- Talk through your worries and concerns with one of these.
- Tip – If you make notes of any potential safeguarding issues in your work diary, then this could be taken by authorities as evidence. So you don’t lose all your bookings and other notes for your business, if you feel you need to make any notes about a safeguarding issue, get a separate book to do this in.