IICSA Residential Schools Investigation Report
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published its long-awaited and comprehensive 227 page report on its investigation into residential schools.
Notwithstanding the title of this investigation strand, the Inquiry considered day schools among their case studies, and a variety of different school settings. The contents of the report are, without doubt, relevant to all schools.
The report makes difficult reading - not only does it detail painful victim testimony, in pen portraits and throughout the thematically-arranged report, but it also catalogues multiple failings by schools to identify and act on concerns, which led to the abuse of children in all types of schools, across all ages. Despite the sea change in the regulatory framework relating to safeguarding since the early 1990s, the Inquiry has concluded that schools are still not as safe for children as they should be. It reminds us that schools should think the unthinkable and accept that 'it could happen here' and identifies heightened risk areas, such as those in boarding and music schools and for children with disabilities.
The Inquiry has identified shortcomings across our current systems of protection, regulation and oversight, and has made a number of recommendations for further incremental change in schools and other organisations, consolidated in two pages at the end of the report, to help to improve existing systems for the protection of children in schools.
We will read and digest the detail of the report and its recommendations and write in more detail about it when we have done so.
We will be presenting our thoughts at our free IICSA webinar on 28 March 2022 which you can book here: Safeguarding update - Lessons from the residential schools investigation undertaken by IICSA