To nurture the skills of resilience is key to providing young people with the ability to cope with stress, adversity, failure and challenges. Resilience is evident when young people have a greater ability to “bounce back” when faced with difficulties and achieve positive outcomes.
Resilience enables an individual to identify discrimination; to make a stand against bullying, aggressive and disrespectful behaviour and to seek support.
The issue locally and nationally
Safety
From Primary school upwards educating children to keep safe in different environments and to be aware of the dangers should be delivered in a sensitive and engaging way. Links below contain free educational material ranging from road safety, internet safety, knife crime and gangs, abuse (from sexual to bullying), safeguarding and radicalisation.
For instance, we know nationally, girls worry more or feel more afraid to go to school than boys, although there is less difference between the proportion of boys and girls saying they have been bullied in the last twelve months. This, with the increasing trend of violence and knife crime, of an average secondary school, some 60+ students could be affiliated to a gang means that schools need to recognise and address both bullying, gang and knife crime within their own environments. Policies, education and training can help towards this but should not be so rigid that there can be no compassion shown to an individual who may have underlying poor mental health or other mitigating factors, which has impacted on their poor decision(s).
The research evidences strong links between children being abused through child sexual exploitation and other behaviours such as running away from home or care, self-harm, teenage pregnancy, truancy, substance misuse and bullying. We are also aware children with special needs, looked after children, children leaving care, migrant children, unaccompanied asylum seeking children, forced marriage, those involved in gangs, where there has been a history of abuse, those with parents who have any of the following; disabilities, mental health problems, drugs or alcohol misuse or domestic violence are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
Historically, in Cambridgeshire, Facebook is the most prevalent platform used by perpetrators. This is followed by WhatsApp, Snapchat, Skype, Kik, Instagram and Oovoo. Live streaming video, Oovoo and Skype has become more common in Cambridgeshire as this type of platform only saves for shorter periods of time making it difficult to gain evidence of any exploitation. Children do not appreciate the levels of risk, which is further supported that children targeted via online routes, often do not display evidence of previous vulnerabilities which makes identifying them more problematic.
In both CSE and domestic abuse, the development of inappropriate relationships is of particular concern and problematic due to there often being small age-gaps between the individuals which can also have presence of coercive or controlling behaviour. In the ‘Further resources and links section’ are links to the local safeguarding team and here is the NSPCC’s Speak out Stay safe programme which helps to give a generation of children the knowledge and understanding they need to stay safe from abuse and neglect.
Resilience
The Department for Education (DfE) state that in an average class of 30 15-year-old pupils:
- Three could have a mental disorder.
- Ten are likely to have witnessed their parents separate.
- One could have experienced the death of a parent.
- Seven are likely to have been bullied.
- Six may be self-harming.
The DfE acknowledge schools have a role to play in supporting their pupils to be resilient and mentally healthy and that schools have a duty to promote the wellbeing of students. This is further supported by Ofsted highlighting that children and young people themselves want to learn more about how to keep themselves emotionally healthy.
Becoming a ‘Compassionate School’ is pivotal to achieving a happy, resilient learning environment. You will then be well positioned to support children and young people overcome Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – stressful events occurring in childhood that either affect a child directly or affect the environment in which they grow up.
What is known to work
Building resilience is a preventative approach which increases the chances of school aged children, of safe, happy, healthy lives and relationships.
This includes teaching about the wider world, this embraces the internet, the reasons for and the trends in society, appreciation of different cultures, about radicalisation and the importance of safe guarding yourself.
Key actions for schools to take
Your workforce
- Schools should be supported to up-skill their staff on current local and national safeguarding themes and how to access support.
- Given access to free resources to provide appropriately aged engaging interventions to promote safety and resilience.
Engage student voices
- Enhancing children and young peoples’ opportunities of providing responsible peer support.
- Create safe environments.
Evaluate and monitor
Evaluation and monitoring can provide motivation by showing the activity or support is effective, meaningful and purposeful. It can also provide the school with evidence of good safe practice.
By the end of primary school pupils should know
- How to keep safe and about people who can help them stay safe.
- Recognise what is fair and unfair, kind and unkind and what is right and wrong.
- Common dangers encountered when travelling to and from school.
- Recognise when people are being unkind either to them or others, how to respond, who to tell and what to say.
- Listen to other people, and play and work cooperatively.
- Identify and respect the differences and similarities between people.
By the beginning of secondary school pupils should know
- The nature and consequences of discrimination, teasing, bullying and aggressive behaviours (including cyber bullying), and how to respond and ask for help.
- Listen and respond respectfully to a wide range of people.
- Feel confident to raise their own concerns.
- Recognise and care about other people’s feelings.
- Respect others with different sexual orientations.
- See that their actions affect others.
- The consequences of carrying a knife.
- The dangers and risk of gangs.
- Different types of abuse including bullying, domestic violence, coercive control and trafficking.
Source – DfE
Local Support

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Adults and Children Board
Multi-agency safeguarding training is important for supporting the collective understanding of local need and for practitioners to be effective in universal services and across the safeguarding pathway. This spans from early help through to targeted and specialist services. To be effective, practitioners need to continue to build their knowledge and skills and be aware of
Read More About Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Adults and Children Board
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service
Teaching fire safety in schools The Fire and Rescue Service provide free fire safety education to children in primary and secondary schools within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Our fire crews, community fire safety officers and community champions carry out interactive educational workshops in schools and at fire stations, reaching out to thousands of Key Stage 1,
Read More About Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service
NSPCC
The NSPCC provide a variety of group as well as one to one services to schools, many of which are FREE of charge. For information on the programme offers click below: To find out more simply contact the NSPCC Service Centre in Peterborough on 01733 207 620. Prior to making a referral, please contact the
Read More About NSPCC
Road Safety Education for Schools
Road Safety Education for Schools The Cambridgeshire road safety team have a wide range of road safety resources and schemes available that are specially designed for different school age groups. Early Years Road Safety Education A child can learn a lot about road safety through play. It may be something as simple as identifying traffic
Read More About Road Safety Education for Schools
Road Safety Peterborough
The Safer Peterborough partnership has a target to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on Peterborough roads. The road safety action plan contains key areas of work to reduce casualties. Visit their website for key advice and services. For further information on any of the above please visit the website or contact
Read More About Road Safety Peterborough
SAFE
Our Team We are a voluntary service focused on supporting young people identified by services as being at significant/moderate risk of Criminal Exploitation within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. We can work with young people up to the age of 17, currently we have no minimum age restriction. We take referrals from a range of statutory and
Read More About SAFEResources
Documents
Key Stage 3
Key Stage 4
Teacher Guidance
- ‘Something’s not right’ Campaign Pack
- DfE Cyberbullying advice for Head Teachers
- DfE First Aid Guidance for Schools
- DfE Preventing and tackling bullying Advice for headteachers, staff and governing bodies
- DfE Teaching online safety in school
- HM GOV Working Together to Safeguard Children
- HM GOV Working Together to Safeguard Children A guide to inter-agency working
- What You Need To Know About Child Criminal Exploitation Pocket Guide
- Young Minds addressing adversity book
Other
External Links
- Barnardos – Supporting Young People
- Barnardos Helping Families
- Barnardos See, Hear, Respond
- CEOP Think You Know – Online and offline safety – Professionals Site
- CEOP Think you know – Parents Site
- Childline – Somethings not right
- Clever Never Goes – Abduction/Strangers
- Embrace – Victims of Crime Domesic Violence Support
- GOV.UK County Lines Guidance for Schools
- National Schools Partnerships
- NSPCC & PSHE Making Sense of Relationships KS2,3,4
- NSPCC Child Protection in Schools Online Course
- NSPCC Criminal Exploitation and Gangs
- NSPCC It’s NOT OK resources
- NSPCC Relationships for Students With Learning Disabilities 11+
- NSPCC Safeguarding self-assessment tool
- NSPCC Safer Recruitment in Education Training
- NSPCC School delivery
- Pet Education Resources – Dog Safety
- Safe For Me Resource Bank
- Sexual Assault Referral Centre
- Survivors UK – male rape and sexual abuse support
- TES Dog Safety Resources