In the third instalment of Tes’ Safeguarding Around the World series, we head to Malaysia, where Stephanie Fedorowicz, deputy principal at St. Joseph’s Institution International, explains why engaging in UK-based training is a key component of ensuring CPD in safeguarding remains relevant.

She also explains why the transient nature of international schools can be problematic for safeguarding as well as the balance that schools must strike between respecting local culture while insisting on the highest standard of safeguarding when discussing any issues with parents.

The first two articles in the series on safeguarding issues around the world look at affluent neglect and cultural sensitivity training.

What are some common safeguarding issues you deal with?

In the international setting, depending on where staff were trained and what role they have in school, they may come to us with very little formal understanding of safeguarding, so we have to start with the basics for everyone.

In terms of specific issues and pupil needs, what we typically see are affluent neglect, physical punishment by parents or family members (in our cultural context, physical punishment is legal to an extent) and cyberbullying.

How do you ensure a consistent approach to safeguarding?

To ensure school-wide consistency and alignment, we have a whole school safeguarding committee, comprised of the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and assistant DSL from both the elementary school and the high school, as well as a school counsellor.

We have a fortnightly meeting and the standing agenda items for that meeting are new cases, case reviews, policy reviews and training needs. Furthermore, all staff are trained before they begin working with the children - this includes staff that are subcontracted, such as the guards, cleaners, dining room staff and personal learning assistants.

When necessary, this training may be carried out in alternative languages to ensure all staff can access the training. In addition, all academic staff take safeguarding courses annually, both as a refresher and to delve further into specific areas (such as dealing with disclosures or affluent neglect in international schools).

Part of that training consists of looking at scenarios and ensuring that staff understand how to respond, as well as how to log concerns on our school system.

How do you stay aware of emerging safeguarding issues?

Our DSLs go on training with UK providers as our systems are based on the UK model. However, they also access training through well-reputed local providers, who can capture safeguarding “in context”.

This is essential in understanding what to do when we are faced with issues that go beyond the expertise of school staff and require outside intervention.

Our safeguarding team also works in collaboration with DSLs in other international schools in our area. We have a network group that meets termly to access training, share good practices and discuss trends that we are seeing and how we are addressing those.

How do you ensure staff training is kept up to date?

We have a single central record where all staff safeguarding training details are kept. Our CPD leaders support our DSLs in monitoring academic staff and ensuring appropriate CPD has been completed.

Using an online platform makes this easy as it gives administrators a clear picture of all training accessed by staff.

Does the mix of nationalities among pupils present an extra safeguarding challenge?

The transient nature of international schools provides unique safeguarding challenges. For example, within the UK, attendance is strictly enforced by the government.

However, in international schools, if attendance is a concern, our best recourse is to work with the parents and see how we can support them and the child. If the parents are a concern, and the relationship breaks down, children can easily be moved to another school or another country.

We do seek safeguarding input from pupils moving to our school (and we share it when pupils move on). However, we are not always informed by parents where pupils are moving, which can put children at risk.

Does the variety of parent backgrounds also make this difficult?

There are always challenges around different cultures and different expectations. We always need to be respectful of our host country’s culture, as well as all of our pupils’ individual family cultures.

As mentioned previously, some forms of physical punishment are still allowed under Malaysian law, so we have to be sensitive to our context. However, cultural differences do not excuse safeguarding concerns.

In Malaysia, family values and culture around protecting children are quite strong and great strides have been made to strengthen protection under the law. We aim to work alongside all families and build understanding through parent workshops or one-to-one meetings, as appropriate.

What are your processes for following up on incidents?

We use an online system to log all concerns. Staff are vigilant with this, and even the smallest incident that just might make you “give pause” is enough to generate either a safeguarding or wellbeing log.

The appropriate team then gets an electronic notification (either the safeguarding or the pastoral team), which we follow up on. The follow-up may just be a conversation checking in with the child or the family, or it may be more serious and long term.

Each case here is quite nuanced, which is why we discuss concerns as a team to ensure we are always making decisions in the best interest of the child. We benefit from staff experience in a wide range of countries and contexts and this helps decision making.

How do you keep your own safeguarding knowledge up to date?

I think this is something that all responsible leaders should be concerned about.

To address this, a multi-pronged approach is necessary, whereby one actively seeks out training but also meets regularly with other DSLs to share good practice.

We are lucky to have a cooperative network of international schools in Kuala Lumpur. Within that, we have termly meetings of our safeguarding leaders, where we can share best practice, developments and our experiences with outside agencies and service providers. Sometimes navigating the external agencies can be more challenging outside of the UK.

Stephanie Fedorowicz is deputy principal at St. Joseph’s Institution International, Malaysia