Management Information Sheet

Revised Operation Encompass Protocol - required action

The CADS Education Worker wrote to all schools individually on 1 May advising of an update to the Operation Encompass Information Sharing Protocol in response to GDPR and local changes. Schools were asked to:

1. ensure that the Headteacher and all Key Adults had read the revised documents
2. complete a new agreement for every Key Adult at the school and the Headteacher (if the Headteacher was not one of the Key Adults).

To date, this information has not been provided by several schools. The agreements should be completed in full and individually for all Key Adults and the Headteacher. The signed agreements should be sent via e-mail to: operationencompass@norfolk.gov.uk.

In order to ensure compliance with the Operation Encompass Information Sharing Protocol, we need schools to provide this updated information by no later than Friday 27 September. If we do not have updated information from schools by this date, we will not be able to provide further domestic abuse notifications until this information is received.

Missing Notifications

In response to a review of Norfolk's response to missing children conducted by the National Working Group last academic year, we have developed procedures in partnership with Norfolk Constabulary that will enable us to extend Operation Encompass to include notifications about missing children. This is an important development that is intended to foster effective multi-agency communication so that education settings can effectively share any concerns or intelligence with the multi-agency Missing Team to safeguard and promote the welfare of the missing children.

The missing notifications that schools will receive will be about the child themselves rather than other members of the family as with Operation Encompass. Only minimal and relevant information will be shared in order to safeguard the child; therefore, schools will not be asked to sign up to an additional Information Sharing Protocol but should ensure that they have read the latest version of the Operation Encompass Protocol and completed the agreement forms as described above.

We will start to provide these notifications to Key Adults this term. Please ensure that:

• All Key Adults have read the Joint Procedures and the briefing PowerPoint provided understand how to record, share and respond to any missing notifications received;
• All other relevant staff have been notified using the briefing document provided as required;
• Through training, that all staff and volunteers are aware of the different ways children can be exploited and the links to going missing;
• Accurate records of each notification are kept using the recording form provided at Appendix 3 of the Joint Procedures;
• In response to a notification, Key Adults share any concerns or intelligence with the CADS Education Representative that either supports locating the child or identifying any potential risk.