At John Keble Primary we are working in partnership with the Metropolitan Police and Children’s Services to identify and provide appropriate support to pupils who have experienced domestic incidents; this scheme is called Operation Encompass.

The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, or witness to a domestic incident. Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent. To find out more about what is considered to be a domestic incident please take a look at the guidance from the Met Police on their website: https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/daa/domestic-abuse/what-is-domestic-abuse/

Operation Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the police and schools. The aim of sharing information with local schools is to allow key adults i.e. DSL or Deputy DSL the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment.

In order to achieve this, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) will notify us of all domestic incidents where one or more of our pupils has been present, to the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) (DSL) via an online notification system.  Upon receipt of any information, the DSL will decide on the appropriate support the child requires, this should be covert dependent on the needs and wishes of the child.  All information sharing and resulting actions will be undertaken in accordance with the Metropolitan Police and MASH Encompass Protocol Data Sharing Agreement.  We will record this information and store this information in accordance with the record keeping procedures outlined in our Safeguarding Policy.