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Raising awareness/campaign: safeguarding young dancers


drdance

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I'm starting this thread as an offshoot of the previous discussion regarding unsafe practices that some parents have witnessed in their dance schools. Off the back of this some of us have suggested trying to do something to raise awareness among parents (signs to watch out for, and letting people know dancers don't need to be belittled, yelled at or pushed to tears in order to be successful) or to campaign for the registered bodies to do more to check that their members are aware of safeguarding legislation, and what sorts of teaching behaviours make children feel unsafe. Annual safeguarding training is compulsory for state school teachers - I would like to put it to the examining bodies that all dance teachers (who wish to enter students for examinations) be required to complete some safeguarding training every year in order to retain their membership.

 

For those who don't know much about me, I am a first and foremost a teacher, of both dance and science, with a lot of education in sports/dance science and medicine (and a fair number of peer-reviewed research papers to my name), who is passionate about making dance training safer, happier and more effective. There are a growing number of people who work with professional dancers to look after their needs, and a few who look after the vocational level dancers but there are thousands and thousands of young people training as dancers, competing in festivals and shows, trying to get into vocational schools and colleges who deserve to be trained safely and effectively to prepare them for a long, happy and healthy career in dance. This is my passion.

 

I am NOT a professional campaigner or marketer - everything I've done so far with MIDAS has been guesswork! I'm sure there are people who are experts in raising awareness of a cause so if you have any experience in this kind of thing or you have ideas, or you just want to be involved then join the discussion.

 

NB This is NOT a naming and shaming effort. In no way should any individual teachers or schools be named or accused of anything - if you do wish to make a disclosure and you have evidence, then go to the NSPCC website or your council, for the appropriate authorities (we are in the process of establishing who they are,if they even exist, for dance specifically).

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Just thinking

 

When it was a CRB individuals couldn't request one - it had to be done by a body

 

Now (I understand) anyone can ask for you - you have to pay for a body to do it & you have to pay an amount each year to ensure it's kept uptodate (but that can be set up to go automatically)

 

So could part of the idea be to get dance teachers to voluntarily DBS themselves on a 'Best Practise' basis & then advertise like mad that all the teachers at my school have DBSs so that peer pressure made other teachers get themselves checked 

 

This may be simplistic

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Nice idea - but DBS does not mean that they are safe. A better thing would be to try and encourage teachers to complete the SiDI Safe dance practice certification and advertise the heck out of that - but that is quite a tricky certificate and isn't cheap so why would teachers do it when they've already got loads of students?

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Nice idea - but DBS does not mean that they are safe. A better thing would be to try and encourage teachers to complete the SiDI Safe dance practice certification and advertise the heck out of that - but that is quite a tricky certificate and isn't cheap so why would teachers do it when they've already got loads of students?

Agreed drdance. All of the teachers at my old dance school had DBS checks. It didnt alter their behaviour. A DBS only really tells you whether someone has been convicted or investigated around safeguarding issues. I dont know of the safe practice certificate. Maybe the campaign should be around lobbying for this to be compulsory. Does the certificate look at safety around emotional and psychological wellbeing?

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My husband & I used to run a part time theatre school franchise.

 

As well as DBS, child protection policy (including the ability for parents/other teachers to bypass the principal & contact a child protection specialist direct, )7h & s policies & safeguarding training we had unannounced inspections by the franchisor to check it was being adhered to.

 

There were a couple of infringments I was told of & I know of two franchisees who had their schools taken off them. We were encouraged to apply for CDET accreditation back when itvwas first opened up to part time schools. I didn't as I felt it didn't add anything more than what we already had in place.

 

I always assumed that the RAD/ISTD etc had stringent checks on their registered teachers. I'm quite surprised that isn't the case.

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I find it unbelievable that in 2016 an annual DBS and a Safeguarding Children certificate are not compulsory for all adults who are involved with the running of organisations for children.

 

Even when, as a parent, acting as an occasional chaperone / parent coordinator for some ballet organisations, this is compulsory.

 

Drdance, do you know about Educare? Their online courses Child Protection in Education and The Prevent Duty would enhance any dance teachers skills and would be an informative course for any teacher looking to gain a more holistic insight into the children in their care. Also to learn about the nature of children at their different developmental stages.

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Thank you for that, Piccolo. I didn't know about it but I do now! I will certainly look into it.

 

With regards to the SiDI course I believe there are elements of psychology involved but it's been a few months since I was last looking at it. All this has reminded me I must get back in touch with them to see about running a course.

 

This is lifted straight from the www.safeindance.com (section for teachers)

 

"It is often thought that safe practice is about restrictive health and safety legislation but there are many more aspects to take into account. Research into this multi-layered approach will lead you to learn more about the necessity of understanding how the body works biomechanically to promote good alignment, discover how good injury awareness and management can protect dancers, why proper nutrition and hydration is important to maintain dancers health and performance while they dance and why psychological elements should be taken into consideration to ensure a safe and effective learning environment. While these are all essential to providing a positive dance experience, it is vital that they are applied with the specific participant group’s needs, abilities and desired outcomes in mind. Your submitted materials will demonstrate both your knowledge and application of all of the Core Principles, with direct attention paid to your specific dancers and stylistic context.

 

This certificate awards 60 hours of continuing professional development.

 

The cost of the HDPC is £140."

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I completely agree with Dr. Dance that all schools should have safeguarding policies that are fit for purpose, regular teacher cpd in this area and where a school is registered with an exam board/boards, these should be the regulatory bodies that check that policies are in place and effective. I think that lobbying exam boards to be more stringent in their requirements and checking is a good way forward. They also need to demonstrate support and take appropriate action to investigate when a concern is raised. Preventing unsafe schools from entering exams and sanctioning their registrations is one thing that will make them sit up and take notice as they will not be able to hide it from parents.

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Thanks to this thread I have finally applied to SiDI (and paid them £200) to become a registered provider for the Healthy Dance Practitioners Certificate, and spent all evening yesterday researching paediatric sports medicine and science! Oh yes and I spent a small fortune on a couple of books on coaching children and adolescents. Surprisingly, (or not) there does not appear to be a book tailored to safe training of children in dance!

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I've recently been elected to the committee of my son's hockey club so am having my eyes opened to all the rules and regulations that must be adhered to in order to run a club under the auspices of England Hockey. And the

associated costs, which are not inconsiderable. Everyone involved is a volunteer, so obviously unlike the majority of dance teachers nobody is trying to make a living out of it, meaning that membership fees and so on can be kept lower, but it does seem ironic that a bunch of volunteers operating a sports club on a shoestring are required to operate to higher standards in terms of child protection etc than professional dance teachers who may be charging substantial fees. After all, the risks to the children are broadly similar. I do think it should be mandatory for all who work with children in any capacity to undergo DRB checks (accepting that these are not infallible), be trained in first aid, injury prevention and to have, and publicly display evidence of appropriate insurance cover. All schools should have a child protection policy and complaints policy and make these easily available to parents.

Of course many responsible schools already do this and more, but clearly plenty don't. It seems crazy to me that basically pretty much anyone can hire a village hall, call themselves "Miss So and So" and a dance school is born. At least some minimum standards need to be introduced and I would fully support any campaign to this end.

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I think we also need to tackle it from the other end of the spectrum in educating parents and children of acceptable and safe behaviour at dance schools.  Many of the parents on the other thread said they were unaware and a new dancing mum has no idea of what to expect, particularly if they have no experience of the dance world. 

 

Maybe an online guide of expectations of a dance school/teacher would be a start so that parents had other opportunities to research and their expectations could be based on fact rather than tv programme experience.

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& possibly should their be a sticky on here (& we should probably discuss it with NotaPushyMum too) about minimum checkable requirements?

 

Although I imagine there would be some discussion about what they should be

Discussion is good! Or a survey or poll perhaps?

Edited by drdance
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ok, a few updates ...

 

I've spoken with RAD and have agreed to put an email together for them outlining what we want as a lobby group. I've indicated that we want a whistleblowing route as an alternative to the full grievance procedure in line with their safeguarding policies as currently people such as I, are not reporting things as not out to ruin someone's livelihood and have their membership suspended via the grievance route, but do want to red flag schools who might need a warning, putting on the right track professionally in order to avoid a formal complaint.  The lady I have spoken with says there is already a whistleblowing policy in place but she needs to clarify if it is purely for in-house staff and in-house training and will get back to me. 

 

The RAD have indicated that it would be good to get CDET on board as they oversee quality standards for a lot if not most of the professional bodies.

 

We spoke about general awareness of things such as 'tilttuesday' from RAD's perspective and generally the whole no-pain-no-gain ethos that seems to be booming in line with the boom in competitive dance :)

 

I've spoken with CDET and agreed to send an email too so that they can bring the right people in on the topic when the director is back in two weeks. 

 

Any suggestions on what else should be on our list of things to do?

Edited by annaliesey
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The franchise I was part of had an overall designated CP officer whose contact details were in my individual CP policy & who any parent or teacher could approach direct with serious safeguarding concerns.

 

Parents/teachers were supposed to address any concerns to me first but it was an option in case any allegation was against me for example.

 

I would ask for such a named, lead person to be available for each of the exam boards a teacher is affiliated to.

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I've just had a fantastic call with ISTD who were completely understanding and supportive of the problems we have all been speaking about on here. (I have referred to this forum).

 

I'm about to send an email to the person I spoke with but they have some really great sounding initiatives about to be launched that tie in precisely with some of the things we have been speaking about. 

 

And in the meantime they are happy to accept 'whistleblowing' content and concerns to consider on a case by case basis without identifying the complainer :)

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We're already making progress, thanks to Annalieseys wonderful efforts and ability to talk marketing! I'm so pleased that soon we'll be in a position where parents, teachers and other concerned parties will be able to raise their concerns anonymously and red-flag any social media posts where children may be being encouraged into unsafe or inappropriate 'tricks' or skills.

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