Brighton - 23rd June, 2009: Me Learning, a specialist provider of social care training, today announced it is releasing a new ‘Safeguarding' online training course for all professionals involved in the care of children and young adults. Me Learning's Safeguarding module will provide a comprehensive introduction to safeguarding and child protection and will form part of its Every Child Matters (ECM) suite that covers every aspect of training all professionals working with children and young adults require. This announcement is timely in light of Lord Laming's report in March of this year on the safeguarding and protection of children, entitled "The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report" (published 12th March 2009).

In his report, Lord Laming recommends that as well as greater leadership and accountability, more resources should be put towards commissioning training on child protection and safeguarding. Out of the 58 recommendations published in the report, 23 of them (40%) relate to training, learning or professional development. Rather than just focusing on the training of social workers, Lord Laming clearly states that the training should cover all staff who work with children, including professionals in the health, education and judicial sectors, to create a shared language. He also stipulates that managerial positions should undertake training, including inspectors, Serious Case Review panel chairs and authors, the Local Safeguarding Children Board chair, senior political leaders and service managers.

Every Children's Trust is now expected to undertake a thorough needs assessment of its local population as part of its Children and Young People's Plan. This assessment needs to ensure that there is a sufficient level of multi-agency training in place to create a shared language and understanding of local referral procedures, assessment, information sharing and decision making across early years, schools, youth services, health, police and other services who work to protect children.

Me Learning's Safeguarding module is being developed following Lord Laming's recommendations to the Children's Trusts and will ensure that all staff who work with children receive initial training and ongoing professional development that will enable them to understand the normal development of a child and recognise the potential signs of neglect or abuse. With the roll-out planned for July 2009, Me Learning's suite will provide induction training, in-depth training for individual specialisms and provide a broader overview for managerial levels. Other courses in the suite include Information Sharing, ContactPoint, Lead Professional, ICS (Integrated Children's System) and CAF (Common Assessment Framework).

Like all Me Learning courseware, the online training is interactive for effective learning and enables users to earn a Certificate of achievement when they complete the course. The courses are aimed at building an understanding of why certain processes and protocols are in place, as well as teaching the rules and regulations, how to correctly record the information and who is responsible for each area of the safeguarding and protection of children.

Safeguarding will take approximately 90 minutes to complete and consists of 17 overview tutorials covering the following topics: safeguarding; child abuse; physical abuse; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; neglect and the child protection process. The tutorial also includes several examples of scenarios where abuse may be present and asks the user to choose the next course of action. This, together with learning games and quizzes, ensures the knowledge learnt is continually tested and re-enforced as the user progresses through the course.

About Me Learning
Me Learning provides Local Authorities with online training tools to ensure all professionals involved in social care are fully informed, working together and following the latest national guidelines, protocols and legislation. Me Learning's government-compliant and engaging computer-based courses cut through the ever-changing red tape, providing an all encompassing future-proof resource to help social care professionals continue to carry out their roles effectively and cooperatively.

The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for both children and adults with additional needs. Lord Laming conducted the Climbié inquiry in 2003 to investigate the circumstances leading to the death of Victoria Climbié and to recommend action to prevent such a tragedy happening again. However, in April 2008 Lord Laming commented: "I have yet to be convinced there is uniformly good practice across the country." Furthermore, government regulator the General Social Care Council (GSCC) has suggested social workers need further training post-qualification to deal with an increasing number of "complex and risky" cases such as Baby P, for which they needed greater expertise.

Me Learning provides both off-the-shelf and tailored courses covering key elements of the Government's ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children' programme run by the DCSF (Department for Children, Schools and Families). It is the only provider of online training courses for two of the leading ICS (Integrated Children's System) software suppliers: OLM and Liquidlogic. 20% of the UK's Local Authorities that have a social care responsibility are already using Me Learning's cost-efficient courses, ranging from Essex County Council's purchase of the MePROTOCOL ICS suite for its own ICS roll-out to over 1,200 staff, to Manchester City Council's purchase of Me Learning's Information Sharing and ContactPoint courses to train 3000 people on the ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children' programme.

More information can be found at http://www.melearning.co.uk/ or by calling us on 01273 455 194.

Me Learning's Course Options
The Me Learning courses are split into two types: those for training social care workers in the use of their Local Authority's social care systems; and those that support the key elements of the Government's Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme by providing the latest national guidelines, protocols and legislation, which all people involved in social care need to be aware of.

For Social Care Workers:

• Integrated Children's System (ICS) Training: ICS is designed to be supported by an electronic case record system which provides a complete view of children in their care and forms the basis of every social care practitioner's working processes. Typically, although staff may receive training on the operation of a new system, they are not always fully conversant with the ICS process itself. Me Learning has therefore developed a comprehensive suite of online training courses to both educate social care workers and relevant support staff in the ICS processes and show how to correctly record information in the case record system.
• Adult Care Training: Me Learning provides training to support OLM's CareFirst and Liquidlogic's PROTOCOL IAS adults software.

For all agencies involved in social care including social care workers:

• Every Child Matters Training: The courses for all professionals involved in social care are based on key elements of the Government's ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children' programme, which aims to encourage integrated working among agencies and enable early intervention and improvement for children with additional needs. There are also plans for a national database, ContactPoint, with the aim of aiding integrated working. Ensuring relevant staff are fully conversant with the process, policies and legislation will ultimately help towards preventing the current spate of deaths from known child abuse cases. Me Learning's Every Child Matters (Me ECM) courses ensure all agencies understand the processes and legislation that shape social care in the UK and how they personally fit into the integrated working process. Courses include: Information Sharing, ContactPoint, Lead Professional, CAF (Common Assessment Framework) and now Safeguarding.

Managing and monitoring staff learning
Me Learning's unique Learning Management System (LMS) provides a platform for a Local Authority to view who has taken a course and whether they have been awarded a certificate. Managers can monitor training levels and provide the Local Authority with evidence that social care professionals in their jurisdiction have reached a certain standard, raising the Local Authority's national reputation and helping improve their star rating.

Further information (external website)