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The Positive Relationships Standard
In June 2023, this chapter was refreshed.
All children and young people have a right to feel confident that the Home is a safe and healthy environment.
All children, young people and staff should remain safe from bullying behaviour and have the opportunity to thrive and prosper, emotionally and socially within and outside the Home.
When bullying is encountered the Home will ensure that the procedures are in place to allow:
This will ensure that people feel listened to and understand that their concerns have been and will be taken seriously.
Within the Home a culture of respect and dignity is agreed and promoted amongst the staff, children, and any visitors into the Home and a set of shared standards of what behaviour and language is acceptable across the Home will be advocated.
Staff and children will receive guidance and training that encourages an understanding and appreciation of what bullying is and how it impacts on self and others.
Bullying is behaviour or actions of a person, group of people or a whole organisation designed to cause distress or to hurt a person or group of people.
‘Child on child abuse' refers to harm caused by one child to another (which may be a single event or a range of ill treatment). This can be within children's relationships (both intimate and non-intimate), friendships, and wider peer associations.
Bullying can be:
An Ofsted thematic review (Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges (Ofsted)) identified substantial levels of sexual harassment for both girls (90%) and boys (nearly 50%) and that in a number of schools this went unreported as a result of the school's 'culture' – a part of which appeared to be that staff were not aware; did not countenance that this could happen, and because once it was discussed (the children) feared the process would be out of their control.
Sexual harassment and sexual violence exist on a continuum and may overlap. Where the latter occurs, there could be a criminal offence committed.
The Review recognised a wide variety of behaviours that children and young people told (them) happened online including:
Sexting is a term which many young people do not recognise or use, therefore it is important that when discussing the risks of this type of behaviour with children and young people the behaviour is accurately explained.
Sexting (some children and young people consider this to mean ‘writing and sharing explicit messages with people they know’ rather than sharing youth-produced sexual images) or sharing nudes and semi-nudes are terms used when a person under the age of 18 shares sexual, naked or semi-naked images or videos of themselves or others or sends sexually explicit messages.
Staff will be trained to recognise and address different types of bullying behaviour.
Staff must be alert to the risk of bullying and should take all reasonable steps to prevent such behaviour. Clear messages must be given that bullying is not acceptable and children must be reassured that significant adults involved in their lives are dealing with bullying seriously. Some acts of bullying could be a criminal offence.
This includes:
The Home will respond promptly and effectively to issues of bullying.
Everyone involved in looking after children shares responsibility for countering bullying and for creating a culture which positively encourages acceptable behaviour and reduces or prevents the likelihood of bullying.
As part of this ethos, everyone must understand what bullying means and what measures should be taken within the Home and by individual staff to counter it.
Everyone should also be clear what measures they should take if they suspect bullying or it is reported to them.
A part of this must be to recognise where an offence has taken place. Sexual assaults (including rape) are clear examples of this together with the fact that legally a 13 year old child cannot ‘consent’ to intercourse. Additionally, creating or sharing explicit images of a child is illegal, even if the person doing it is a child. A young person is breaking the law if they:
However, if a young person is found creating or sharing images, the police can choose to record that a crime has been committed but that taking formal action is not in the public interest.
See also Safe Use of the Internet, Social Media and Photographs Procedure.
With effect from 29 June 2021, section 69 Domestic Abuse Act 2021 expanded so-called 'revenge porn' to include threats to disclose private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress.
In this respect, everyone should be alert to the fact that bullying may constitute Significant Harm and, if so, must be reported under the Safeguarding Children and Young People and Referring Safeguarding Concerns Procedure.
Where children attend the same school, staff should work together with educational establishments where bullying occurs between children they both have responsibility for.
The Home’s strategies for countering bullying should be set down in the Statement of Purpose.
The Children's Guide should also contain information and advice on countering bullying.
As part of the assessment and planning process, the manager of the Home must ensure that a Risk Assessment is conducted on each child to ascertain whether they may be a victim or perpetrator of bullying.
If there is any risk, it should be addressed in the child's Placement Plan with details of the strategies that must be adopted to prevent or reduce the bullying.
If staff have any concerns, they must discuss them with colleagues and the Home manager, who should take what actions are necessary to reduce or prevent it.
In order to maintain an effective strategy for dealing with bullying, traditional ideas about bullying should be challenged by everyone working in the Home, e.g. by emphasising:
A restorative approach and the use of restorative enquiry and subsequent mediation between those involved can provide an opportunity to meet the needs of all concerned. The child who has been bullied has the chance to say how they have been affected. The opportunity is provided for the child doing the bullying to understand the impact of their actions and to make amends.
Staff in the Home may have to deal with the perpetrators as well as the victims of bullying. It should be borne in mind that bullying behaviour may in itself be an indication of previous abuse or exposure to violence. The focus should be on the bullying behaviour rather than the child and, where possible, the reasons for the behaviour should be explored and dealt with. A clear explanation of the extent of the upset the bullying has caused should be given to the young person who perpetrated the bullying behaviour and they should be encouraged to see the bullied child’s points of view.
It may be appropriate to convene a meeting, preferably with the young person/people concerned, to discuss strategies to prevent or reduce the bullying. This may include the following:
If the bullying is persistent or serious, the social worker should be consulted and it may be necessary to conduct a Placement Planning Meeting or a Strategy Discussion in line with Child Protection Referral Procedures.
See: Safeguarding Children and Young People and Referring Safeguarding Concerns Procedure
If the Home manager is unavailable, staff may take what immediate actions are necessary to reduce or prevent bullying from occurring and then inform the manager as soon as practicable.
Where bullying is not persistent or not serious it should be notified to the Home manager at the first opportunity; the manager will decide whether to inform the social worker and what further actions to take.
Serious or persistent bullying must be notified immediately to the Home's manager and the relevant social worker notified within 1 working day - the social worker should be consulted and consideration given to whether a Child Protection Referral should be made, if so, see Safeguarding Children and Young People and Referring Safeguarding Concerns Procedure.
The Designated Manager (Bullying) should also be notified and consideration given to whether the incident is a Notifiable Event.
All incidents must be recorded in the Home's Daily Log and relevant child's Daily Record.
An Incident Report must also be completed (where it is possible the specific category of bullying e.g. verbal/physical/cyberbullying should be identified and highlighted in the incident report so that different incidents of bullying can be monitored as required).
The child's Placement Plan should be reviewed with a view to incorporating strategies to reduce or prevent future incidents.
The Home's manager is responsible for reviewing the incidence and nature of bullying in the Home as part regular Quality Audits, see Monitoring Quality Procedure.
See also: Advice for Parents and Carers on Cyberbullying (Department for Education, 2015).
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