Tallented is working with a 4 sized MAT in Portsmouth.

Protecting the most vulnerable children in our communities is the absolute highest priority for this four-school MAT in Portsmouth. The Trust is seeking a highly authoritative, clinical expert to take on the role of Director of Safeguarding. The strategic intent behind this appointment is to ensure a flawless, unified approach to child protection across the network. Your core focus areas will be complete policy harmonization, high-level external agency liaison, and providing vital professional supervision for school-based Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs).

Your immediate task will be comprehensive policy harmonization. Currently, variations exist in how child protection policies are interpreted and applied across the four academies. You will conduct a root-and-branch review of all existing safeguarding documentation, rewriting and standardizing procedures to create a single, watertight, Trust-wide policy framework. This ensures that whether a child attends school A or school B, the standard of vigilance, reporting, and intervention is identical and adheres to the absolute latest Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) statutory guidance.

Outwardly, you will act as the Trust’s senior representative in all multi-agency child protection arenas. You will build and maintain formidable working relationships with the Portsmouth Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO), social care services, local policing teams, and health professionals, ensuring the Trust’s voice is heard and its pupils are prioritized within the wider civic safeguarding network. Internally, you will provide clinical and professional supervision for the DSLs located within each school. Recognizing the immense emotional toll of safeguarding work, you will create a safe space for DSLs to debrief on complex cases, receive expert case direction, and ensure their own mental wellbeing is protected, thereby sustaining a highly effective safeguarding team across the Trust.

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