Policy
Safeguarding and Prevent
Everyone who learns with us has the right to be safe. This policy sets out how we protect and promote the welfare of our apprentices and adult learners, and how we work with employers and partners to keep them safe from harm, abuse, exploitation and radicalisation.
At a glance
- Who it protects: learners under 18, young adults aged 16 to 24, and adults who may be at risk.
- Who leads it: our Designated Safeguarding Lead, Alishka Ragani, supported by deputies including our CEO, Charles Dall'Omo.
- Everyone is trained: in safeguarding, the Prevent duty and online safety, every year.
- Safe recruitment: every role has the right checks before anyone works with learners.
- Shared with employers: because our apprentices spend most of their time at work.
- Every concern acted on: recorded securely, taken seriously and shared only with those who need to know.
Our approach
We follow the Department for Education's Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025, adapted for an apprenticeship provider whose learners are mostly 16 and over. That means we keep our child protection duties for 16 and 17 year olds, give equal weight to adults who may be at risk, share responsibility with employers, and keep learners safe across every place they learn: at work, at training venues and online.
We also follow the six principles of safeguarding adults:
- Empowerment. People have the right to make their own decisions, and we support them to do so.
- Prevention. We act before harm happens, by spotting risks early.
- Proportionality. Our response fits the risk, and is the least intrusive that keeps someone safe.
- Protection. We have clear ways to report concerns, and we respond quickly.
- Partnership. We work with other agencies, employers and families.
- Accountability. We keep clear records, learn from what happens and respect people's rights.
What we mean by abuse and harm
We have zero tolerance of abuse in any form, including:
- Physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and neglect.
- Online abuse, such as cyberbullying, online grooming, image-based abuse and harmful AI-generated content.
- Financial abuse, including exploiting an apprentice's pay or funding.
- Discriminatory abuse based on any protected characteristic.
- Workplace exploitation, such as unsafe conditions, excessive hours or a lack of proper training and supervision.
- Criminal exploitation, including county lines.
- Modern slavery, including forced labour and trafficking.
- Radicalisation, including exposure to extremist content, conspiracy theories and misinformation.
- Abuse between apprentices, which we never tolerate.
How we keep learners safe
- Trained people. Everyone who works with our learners is trained to recognise the signs of abuse and to respond well when someone tells them something.
- Listening and acting. If a learner tells us something, we listen calmly, take it seriously, explain who we'll need to share it with, and pass it to our safeguarding team straight away.
- Secure records. Every concern is recorded in a secure system, and information is shared only with those who need to know.
- Keeping in touch. If a learner misses a session, we follow up quickly with them and their employer.
- Working with others. Where needed, we work with local authorities, the police and other safeguarding partners.
- Concerns about our own team. Any allegation about a member of staff is handled through a clear process, including referral to the Local Authority Designated Officer where appropriate.
Working with employers
Safeguarding is a shared responsibility. We ask every employer to:
- Provide a safe working environment, with suitable supervision and a workplace mentor.
- Follow safeguarding law and guidance, and keep their own safeguarding arrangements in place.
- Make sure staff working closely with apprentices under 18 have appropriate DBS checks.
- Tell us straight away about any safeguarding concern.
- Support their apprentice's wellbeing at work and in their learning.
We offer employers safeguarding training covering the signs of abuse, how to report a concern, the Prevent duty, and modern slavery and exploitation.
Prevent and British values
We have a legal duty to help prevent people being drawn into terrorism and extremism. We train our team to recognise the signs of radicalisation, including online, and to act on concerns through our safeguarding team, who can make a referral to Prevent where needed. Support through Channel, the multi-agency early intervention programme, is voluntary and built around the individual.
We promote fundamental British values in our teaching and with employers:
- Democracy, respecting different viewpoints and taking part in decisions.
- The rule of law, understanding that laws apply equally to everyone.
- Individual liberty, supporting independence and the responsibility not to harm others.
- Mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths, beliefs, cultures and lifestyles.
Online safety
Learners spend a lot of their time online, and the risks keep changing. We help learners judge online information critically, recognise AI-generated content and deepfakes, protect their privacy and know how to report anything worrying. Our online sessions use secure platforms, with clear expectations of behaviour, and our team is trained every year on online risks, including those from AI.
Safer recruitment
Everyone who works with our learners is recruited safely, with references, identity and right to work checks, and Disclosure and Barring Service checks appropriate to the role. We keep a single central record of these checks, and our team renews their safeguarding training every year. Read our safer recruitment policy.
Our safeguarding team
Our Designated Safeguarding Lead is Alishka Ragani, Head of Quality. She's supported by our deputy safeguarding officers, including Charles Dall'Omo, our CEO.
To reach the team, call 0116 235 8000 or email safeguarding@traintogetherltd.co.uk.
- National Prevent Advice Line: 0800 011 3764
- Childline (for young people): 0800 1111
- If someone is in immediate danger: call 999
Read the full policy
This page is a summary of our full Safeguarding and Prevent Policy. To request the full policy, including its appendices, email safeguarding@traintogetherltd.co.uk.
Related policies: Safer recruitment · Modern slavery statement · Equality, diversity and inclusion · Complaints and appeals