Journeying to a culturally competent, open and understanding workforce

A number of Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews that have taken place over the last 3 years have identified concerns with understanding and considering difference within our interactions with children, young people and their families.  This has been seen across the continuum of support from single agency services through to statutory social care interventions and plans.  Due to this Sandwell Children's Safeguarding Partnership have commissioned the creation and delivery of Cultural Competency training that will support practitioners to develop their knowledge and understanding of safeguarding in the context of culture and diversity in order to improve outcomes and access to support for all of our children and young people in Sandwell.

We will do this by:

• understanding how stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination affects minority groups
• Being able to recognise our own biases and fragility and the impact these can have on our practice when working with those that are different to ourselves
• Consider relevant messages from research and reviews and how to apply underpinning theories of equality, including the concept of resilience, to safeguarding practices
• To gain the knowledge needed to improve practice and ensure that engagement and interventions consider the issues of diversity and the impact of culture when working with minority groups.