Addressing Race and Racism in Safeguarding: Practical Steps for Schools

The recent thematic review, It’s Silent: Race, racism and safeguarding children, by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, reveals a troubling commonality: namely that race and racism are largely overlooked by numerous safeguarding policies and practices across the UK.

The report also highlights how safeguarding experiences differ for Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children, illustrating how racial bias and systemic discrimination within the safeguarding system may jeopardise children's safety.

Furthermore, the report discusses the concept of adultification, that is Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children being perceived by adults as older and less vulnerable than their peers, consequently resulting in serious implications for decisions taken regarding their safety.

The report includes the following key findings:

• Race is often missing from conversations about safeguarding, and as a result, practitioners frequently do not consider how racism and discrimination may affect children's lived experiences;
• Adultification bias makes Black children, especially boys, perceived as older and less vulnerable, which negatively affects the protective action taken;
• Racial disparities in intervention rates, where Black children are over-represented in terms of exclusion whilst being under-represented in receiving safeguarding support;
• Poor engagement with families from minority ethnic backgrounds, who are often framed as 'hard to reach' rather than acknowledging systemic barriers to engagement;
• A lack of meaningful recording of race and ethnicity in safeguarding reports, which limits the ability to track and address racial and ethnic disparities.

To tackle these issues, schools must take determined and practical actions to implement anti-racist safeguarding practices. The following are concrete actions that educational settings can take to ensure all children receive the protection and support they need, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

1. Integrate Anti-Racist Training into Safeguarding Policies

One of the key recommendations from the report is that schools and safeguarding professionals require specialist training on racial bias in safeguarding. Cultural awareness is included in many existing training programmes, without an understanding of how racism and discrimination inform safeguarding practices.

What schools need to do:

• Ensure all staff receive mandatory anti-racist training on how racial bias influences safeguarding decisions;
• Provide staff training about adultification bias and how Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children are perceived differently;
• Engage safeguarding leads in specialist race and safeguarding training, which will also inform school policies.

2. Make Sure Race and Ethnicity Are Correctly Recorded

The report indicates a persistent failure to record ethnicity in safeguarding reports, which hampers efforts to examine and address racial disparities. Without accurate data on the children affected, schools cannot assess whether the processes related to the safeguarding of children are disproportionately impacting those from minority ethnic backgrounds.

What schools need to do:

• Standardise ethnicity recording across all safeguarding documentation;
• Conduct periodic analyses of ethnicity data to identify patterns or gaps;
• Review past safeguarding reports. If the data does not exist or is used inconsistently, revise record-keeping procedures immediately;
• Train staff on the significance of this data and its usage to strengthen safeguarding interventions.

3. Tackle Adultification Bias When Making Safeguarding Decisions

The report highlights how Black children, particularly Black boys, are perceived as older and less vulnerable than they truly are, resulting in a failure to initiate safeguarding interventions. This perception is likely to lead to punitive processes rather than protective ones in response to their behaviour.

What schools need to do:

• Train staff to assess risk and vulnerability based on actual age rather than perceived maturity;
• Implement structured decision-making tools that minimise racial bias in child protection decision-making;
• Ensure safeguarding leads challenge assumptions about children's behaviour and vulnerability;
• Introduce a case review panel where safeguarding decisions are reviewed to check for racial bias before final actions are taken.

4. Improve Engagement with Families from Minority Ethnic Backgrounds

The report highlights that professionals often struggle to engage with families from minority ethnic backgrounds, with language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and institutional bias all contributing to poor relationships.

What schools need to do:

• Avoid framing families as 'hard to reach'. Instead, acknowledge the systemic barriers they may face in engaging with safeguarding services;
• Ensure that interpreting services are provided and that safeguarding information is published/shared in various languages;
• Build trust with local community groups to improve communication and access to support;
• Establish focus groups that include parents from diverse backgrounds to hear and understand their perspectives on safeguarding and any challenges they encounter.

5. Centre Children's Voices in Safeguarding

The report found that children's voices are often missing from safeguarding reviews, which means their experiences of racism or discrimination can go unheard.

What schools need to do:

• Establish safe environments for children to discuss racism and safeguarding matters without repercussion;
• Develop peer-led safeguarding initiatives that empower young people to support one another and voice concerns to staff;
• Ensure that complaints procedures are accessible and treated seriously when children report discrimination;
• Appoint student safeguarding representatives to serve as liaisons between students and staff regarding racial discrimination and safeguarding issues.

6. Strengthen Multi-Agency Working on Race and Safeguarding

Safeguarding is not merely a school responsibility, it requires collaboration with social services, health professionals, and the police. However, race and racism are seldom mentioned in multi-agency safeguarding meetings, leading to situations where this bias typically goes unchallenged.

What schools need to do:

• Ensure that race and ethnicity are explicitly addressed in multi-agency safeguarding meetings;
• Foster improved representation on decision-making panels;
• Advocate for policy changes to make safeguarding more equitable for all children;
• Request race and ethnicity impact assessments for safeguarding cases involving Black, Asian, or Mixed Heritage children.

7. Review and Update Safeguarding Policies

A significant issue raised in the report is that safeguarding policies seldom address race and racism. Schools must take responsibility for ensuring that safeguarding is genuinely inclusive.

What schools need to do:

• Conduct yearly evaluations of safeguarding policies to ensure that racial bias is being addressed;
• Carry out external audits to assess the effectiveness of the school's strategies in combating racism within safeguarding;
• Make a public commitment to anti-racist safeguarding principles;
• Arrange an annual review of your safeguarding policies, specifically concentrating on addressing race and racial bias.

As the report highlights, for far too long, race and racism have been overlooked in safeguarding practices, which may result in catastrophic consequences for Black, Asian, and Mixed Heritage children. Under their duty of care, schools must take prompt action to address racial bias, enhance engagement with families, and ensure that safeguarding is fair and equitable for all children.

By implementing the above practical steps, schools can move beyond mere awareness to ensure that their safeguarding policies and practices effectively protect every child.

SSS Learning

31 March 2025