CONTEXT & RATIONALE
Over the years, both during the time of its predecessor Dudley Area Child Protection Committee, and since the establishment of Dudley Safeguarding Children Board in April 2005, thousands of professionals have received free multi-agency child protection training. Between September 2005 and October 2006, 1685 people attended multi-agency training (Level 1,2 or 3) and another 960 people received single-agency child protection training.
Dudley Safeguarding Children Board remains committed to ensuring that staff from all member agencies have access to good quality training, which is free wherever possible. However, the delivery of an extensive training programme is costly, both financially and in terms of human resources. The vast majority of training is delivered by locally accredited trainers working within the statutory and voluntary sector, the remainder of the programme is commissioned through external trainers who cost between £400-500 per day. The majority of the programme is currently funded by agencies within the Board, most of who make relatively small contributions to the training & development budget. This is inadequate in fully meeting the actual costs of the programme.
The Board remains committed to delivering more traditional forms of training and has increased the range and frequency of courses available to staff over the last year. However, the number of people who work with or come into contact with children and young people in Dudley is estimated to be in excess of 12,000 people. During the course of 2007 and beyond DSCB will be funding e-learning safeguarding modules in partnership with Virtual College commencing with basic (foundation & core) child protection awareness training.
CHARGING POLICY
The Training & Development Sub-Committee is responsible for the development and monitoring of the multi-agency training programme. The Committee has been debating the need to charge for some courses over several months. This has been in response to issues such as non-attendance, costs of trainers & venues, and the need to value the quality of the delivery and the trainers’ experience.
maintain and expand the training programme.
DSCB accredited trainers are also commissioned by member or non-member agencies such as independent (for-profit) organisations to deliver additional single agency training – income raised from this will be utilised by the Board if approved by the line manager of the trainer as a work commitment. In some circumstances, it will be appropriate for this to be considered a private arrangement between agency and trainer.
