DLN Access

Introduction

DLN ACCESS is committed to keeping children and young people safe. We work in partnership with our schools, parents and employers to ensure the wellbeing of children and young people during work-related opportunities.

The purpose of DLN ACCESS is to connect underrepresented young people, aged 7-19, to age-appropriate career and leadership development opportunities. We aim to improve access to work experiences for children and young people from one or more of the following underrepresented groups:

• Black
• Girls
• Low socio-economic

Our Role

DLN ACCESS is a facilitator, connecting schools, parents, young people and employers to a range of work-related opportunities. In the same way as you retain responsibility for the safety and well-being of your students/child(ren) during face to face/virtual work experience placements and work-related opportunities, the school/parent is responsible for safeguarding during these activities. 

Therefore, please follow the usual safeguarding and remote education policies and procedures you have in place for work experience placements and work-related opportunities. 

Our Policy

Key terms used throughout the policy include:

• ‘Work-related opportunities/experiences’: used to describe any exposure to work or working practice that does not involve a specific placement within a company. Activities may include employer talks, world of work days, careers fairs, enterprise activities, skills competitions, networking events, leadership development opportunities etc. 
• ‘Work experience placements’: used to describe work undertaken in a specific workplace over an extended period of time. (DfE, 2017) Placements include virtual and face to face work experience placements, traineeships, apprenticeships and School Leaver Programmes.

• ‘Mentoring’: used to describe one to one calls or face to face meetings with an employee.

In addition to your school’s safeguarding policy, this is what DLN ACCESS does to keep young people safe during work-related opportunities: 

• We only facilitate work-related opportunities for two or more students. This minimum cohort means students will never be doing a work-related opportunity alone with an employer. 

• Before the work-related opportunity, we ask all participating employers involved in the direct delivery of the opportunity to read and sign a code of conduct, which outlines how they should interact with students and how to handle data responsibly. 

• We ensure students are aware of safeguarding procedures and ask all students to sign a code of conduct relating to professional behaviour and keeping themselves safe during work-related opportunities. 

• We make it clear to students that they should report anything unusual or uncomfortable to their teachers, parents and DLN ACCESS as soon as possible. 

• Students’ email addresses are handled by DLN ACCESS and are not passed on to the participating employers. All communication is done through the DLN ACCESS platform.  
• Virtual work-related opportunities will be run through our own Google Classroom account, which gives us full visibility of all interactions taking place between employers and students.

In addition to your school’s safeguarding policy and the items listed above, this is what DLN ACCESS does to keep young people safe during work experience placements: 

• We ensure participating employers complete our detailed work-experience form, detailing what work the student will do, what the relevant precautions are and the planned arrangements for the induction, training and supervision of the student.

• We ensure participating employers have liability insurance that covers work experience students as employees.

In addition to your school’s safeguarding policy and the items listed above, this is what DLN ACCESS does to keep young people safe during mentoring: 

• We ensure all participating mentors have been enhanced DBS checked by DLN ACCESS or by their employer. 

• We ensure students and participating mentors are aware of safeguarding procedures and sign a code of conduct relating to their mentoring relationship during and after the opportunity. 

Date Approved: 01/08/2023

Date of Next Review 01/08/2024

Policy Owner Katrina Thompson, [email protected] – Child Safeguarding Officer