When working with young people it is good practice to make sure your team has a consistent approach to dealing with difficult issues.

Many staff aren’t sure what to do with a disclosure, and many have questions such as:

Q. Do I have to tell their parents?
Q. Do I have to tell the head teacher?
Q. Should I get them referred somewhere for counselling?
Q. How much of what they tell me should I write down?
Q. Is it a safeguarding issue, because we have a policy for that?
Q. How much can I keep confidential?

A good policy will cover all these issues, and more, making sure everyone involved has clarity and direction about how best to support the young person concerned as well as ensuring good practice from a safeguarding perspective.

Some things to consider when creating a policy:

Your policy needs to be accessible and appropriate for all. It may be beneficial to write this through a steering group which ideally includes young people.

There will be difficult issues you need to discuss for you to know how you will approach them including:

• Who are you going to tell?
• Who should you tell?
• What support can you offer?
• What resources do you need?
• What should you be documenting?
• When should you be documenting?

Be specific about everyone’s roles and responsibilities when managing self-harm, and outline expectations. Consider:

• Senior teachers / leaders support/pastoral support
• All other staff
• Young people
• Parents / carers

Template for Self Harm Policy is an example which you may want to use, amend or adapt depending on what you already have in place in your organisation and in line with your existing organisational polices.