Recently, there has been a great deal of attention to (social) safety in education following the increased number of reports to the Inspectorate of Education about – serious – incidents at schools. Although these figures do not necessarily indicate an increase in the number of incidents, they do show that continued attention to this issue from school leadership and school boards remains necessary.
Experts on practical situations
During the webinar, various experts discussed practical situations. They also provided tips on what to look out for and how to act.
- Lynn Louwe, social safety policy adviser and crisis adviser at School & Veiligheid. She focused specifically on how to work on the pedagogical climate at your school.
- Maartje van der Lek and Ilona Muizelaar, team leader for pre-vocational secondary education and PE teacher & student coordinator, respectively, at O.R.S. Lek en Linge in Culemborg. They discussed the approach used by the school to prevent unsafe situations by working with various disciplines, such as youth work, youth care, the police and the municipality.
- Tonnes Blonk, programme manager at the Netwerk Veilige School for secondary schools in The Hague, Leidschendam-Voorburg and Rijswijk. Tonnes supports schools with their safety policies and is building a strong care and safety network around these schools.
- Annika Janssens, policy coordinator at Stichting Halt. She spoke about the ‘School and Neighbourhood Approach: Every young person deserves a promising future’. Halt contributes to this by focusing on preventing transgressive behaviour. The foundation invests in young people’s social resilience in the neighbourhood, at school and on the sports field.