KidSafe UK Children's Mental Health & Safeguarding is a leading provider of child safeguarding and mental health education to schools in the UK
Founded in 2001 by Val Webb and Jude Walker, KidSafe UK provide schools with in-depth training materials that enable any member of staff to deliver our KidSafe UK programmes directly to your pupils from Early Years Foundation Stage through to High School.
Our programmes are child-friendly, preventative, and age-appropriate. They teach children the skills and knowledge they need to stay safe and thrive. We have over 20 years of experience and our programmes are supported by parents, carers, school staff, governors, and most importantly, by the children themselves.
History of KidSafe UK Children’s Mental Health & Safeguarding
Val Webb, the co-founder of KidSafe UK has been teaching in some form of education for over 30 years, with the concept of KidSafe beginning as a result of working for Lancashire County Council delivering 25-hour personal safety courses for women.
Due to the very nature of the courses and offering a safe and trusting environment, many women felt safe to share, and some of the very first time, that they have been sexually abused as children and they still carried harm and impact that the abuse had caused. The original abuse continued to impact on their self-esteem, self-worth and confidence and they continue to carry so much shame around for what had happened to them.
The most common sentiment was that they wished they had told someone about the abuse when they were younger. It was heart breaking to consistently hear the struggle some of the women were describing, as a result of this a light bulb moment happened, how great would it be to thoroughly educate children around all forms of abuse, including sexual abuse in an age-appropriate way without shattering their innocence on what they could do if abuse was happening to them or become a reality in the future.
Watch Val Webb discuss the history of KidSafe UK Children’s Mental Health & Safeguarding
Since that time KidSafe UK has had the privilege of teaching its safeguarding programme to thousands of children in Cumbria.
In 2011, Val Webb and Jude Walker, co-founders of KidSafe UK, wanted even more children to receive the safeguarding programme, therefore a training for tutor aspect of KidSafe was developed, which meant training members of school staff to teach KidSafe directly to children.
This modality has been an overwhelming success, KidSafe is now delivered to tens of thousands of children in hundreds of primary schools across the north of England, which is such a wonderful and heartwarming thought to consider and an amazing achievement that so many children now know what to do if abuse is or becomes a reality.
But anyone who’s ever met Val and Jude will know that until all children are given the opportunity to receive KidSafe, they will not rest on their laurels until their goal is achieved. They are so passionate and determined to make this happen. All children absolutely deserve this.
In 2019, a new modality that replicates a two-day training for tutors' course was developed - The KidSafe UK Children’s Mental Health & Safeguarding Training Kit. This now provides any member of school staff with the training and resources required to deliver the full range of KidSafe UK programmes.
KidSafe has always known the extent of childhood abuse and it really is a scourge of society. What makes KidSafe unique is that our primary purpose is to educate children directly to be able to deal with any form of abuse, including sexual and domestic violence, and the extremely worrying dangers they now face in the digital age, which includes grooming, cyberbullying and sexualised material.
The psychological and detrimental impact on children’s emotional wellbeing and mental health is immense. The majority of safeguarding, mental health and ACEs training continues to be aimed at adults who clearly find out about signs and symptoms of the appalling harm that transpires as a result of abuse and then what. Most practitioners are not given any solution, if only they could access a programme such as KidSafe to be actively working with children to try and prevent abuse happening in the first place.
KidSafe focuses on the solution not the problem and we are so excited and proud to now make the KidSafe programme available to all schools and organisations across the UK and beyond.
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Are you Interested in becoming a Kidsafe UK Registered School / Provider?
We would be happy to answer any questions you have about this initiative and help you become a registered school or provider.
Give us a call today or complete our online enquiry form.
We would be happy to answer any questions you have about this initiative and help you become a registered school or provider. Give us a call today or complete our online enquiry form.