Daily Safeguarding News - Safer Schools NI

£60 million government investment to transform the school run for 2 million children

The initiatives, launched by Active Travel England (ATE) will enable more children to make active choices when travelling in their communities.
The two-year funding will include £50 million to expand Bikeability cycle training to a million more young people.
A further £5 million will support the walk to school programmes aimed at pupils across England via the charity Living Streets.
Chris Boardman, Active Travel Commissioner stated: “This £60 million funding package will help put the joy back into journeys and create a generation of young people who feel confident to make healthier and greener travel choices”.
For more, please visit Gov.UK website.

Barnardo’s has reported that more than a million children in the UK sleep on the floor (440,000) or share a bed with parents or siblings (700,000) as their family cannot afford to replace broken bed frames and mouldy linen.
The charity has stated that “bed poverty” reflects growing levels of destitution in which low-income families already struggling with soaring food or gas bills find they are unable to afford a comfortable night’s sleep.
The report found that these sleeping arrangements are leaving them tired, anxious and finding it hard to concentrate at school.
Barnardo’s have also reported that meagre social-security benefit levels and policies such as the two-child benefit limit were fuelling bed poverty.
A government spokesperson has reported that they are supporting families with food, clothing and beds through the household support fund and have raised benefits and pensions by over 10%.
For more, please visit The Guardian website.

Hundreds of teachers in west Belfast will come together for a special wellbeing day on Friday.
There will be workshops from Cook Yourself Happy to why Hope Matters to Mental Health.
Lynne McMullan is the co-ordinator for West Belfast Area Learning Community (WBALC) and described it as a “dynamic collaboration of schools”.
Jackie Bartley, principal of St Genevieve’s High School in west Belfast, said that “we must invest in our teachers in order to invest in our children”.
She continued: “they’re front-line with our pupils every day, and in order to be empathetic to our children our staff need to be supported”.
For more, please visit the BBC News website.

One year on, officers have arrested 1,298 perpetrators under new legislation (domestic abuse, stalking and non-fatal strangulation) and conducted hundreds of targeted patrols.
Since February 2022 to date, 1,069 arrests have been made for the new domestic abuse offence, since stalking offences were introduced for the first time in April 2022, 50 arrests have been made and for non-fatal strangulation, introduced in only July this year, 179 arrests have been made.
41 actions were set out in the PSNI’s seven-year plan.
In the first year, 23 of the 41 actions have already been completed.
Detective Chief Superintendent McNally reported that they are proactively tracking reports of violence, abuse and intimidation against women and girls.
He also reported that 6,500 officers and staff have undergone training on domestic abuse, 5,000 are now trained to recognise and respond to stalking, and 1,900 to respond to reports of non-fatal strangulation.
For more, please visit the PSNI website.