Thankfully, Woodhouse West Primary is one of the 6579 in the UK who record and monitor all agency involvement across the whole community through CPOMS. “We started using CPOMS two years ago,” explains Tina, “and this proved to be an invaluable tool for the management of safeguarding and wellbeing in school. Any information logged can, if needed, be printed or sent electronically which means the mammoth task can be done in an easier, quicker and in a more cost effective way!
“Instead of laboriously preparing the files and sending via recorded delivery, this can be completed in an instant.”
Well-publicised failings in child protection (such as this case in Tameside) have been blamed on a lack of multi-agency communication and community practice. CPOMS aim to solve this issue by helping to both bring together the entire school community and safely liaise with external organisations (including police, social services, educational psychologists and CAMHS). External members of agency staff can be given a specific level of access, meaning that that information can be sent out and received specific to each person's level of involvement. This way, safeguarding is tremendously effective.
“CPOMS is an essential part of our processes to support the safeguarding of children and their wellbeing across school,” enthuses Angela Wild, headteacher at Rockingham Junior and Infant School in Rotherham. “All staff use CPOMS to instantly report information or concerns, share this information immediately with the appropriate colleagues, and produce detailed reports when necessary. The system is easy-to-use, too; different levels of access and categories of incidents can be easily adapted and extended as the school grows in its use of CPOMS.
“There is peace of mind, knowing that all information can be instantly accessed. We are looking forward to everyone in our learning community using CPOMS, so that we can all exchange vital information electronically when children move between our schools.”
With instances such as this, when children move between those schools, information is automatically transferred through the use of CPOMS. This makes information-sharing across the community considerably easier.
As CPOMS is reducing workload in over a quarter of schools in the UK, you likely know someone using the resource. The team are proud to publicly feature their pricings on the CPOMS website; your school community can become thoroughly safeguarded today from just £500 per annum.
Interesting topic, it can be hard to discuss cases that you are working on as you can take things very personally, but it is so important, I have found using @CPOMSUK means that any #dsl can read and review which is useful and allows for healthy but needed reflection #sghour
— Ceri Stokes (@CeriStokes) March 25, 2018
Schools looking to get involved should visit www.cpoms.co.uk (where demo requests can be made), or alternatively contact [email protected] / 0845 345 1155.
As Tina from Woodhouse West Primary puts it: “I’d just like to say a massive thank you to the CPOMS team; here’s hoping that all schools sign up ASAP!”
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