Safeguarding Practice Lead - West Alternative Provision College

About Us

Sussex Alternative Provision College (WSAPC) is one of the largest and most diverse registered Alternative Provision organisations in the country, supporting hundreds of children and young people across West Sussex every year.

Our work spans primary, secondary and post-16 education, supporting pupils who are permanently excluded, at risk of exclusion, unable to attend school due to medical needs, experiencing significant barriers to learning, or requiring specialist intervention to successfully access education. We operate across multiple sites and services throughout the county, working in partnership with schools, families, health services and local authority teams to ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed.

At Sussex APC, we believe that every child deserves a sense of belonging, regardless of their starting point or the challenges they face. We are ambitious for our pupils and committed to helping them develop the confidence, skills and resilience needed to achieve positive futures.

We are looking for people who share our values and believe that relationships, compassion and high expectations can change lives. In return, we offer a supportive and collaborative working environment where professional development is encouraged, innovation is welcomed and every member of staff plays an important role in improving outcomes for children and young people.

If you are motivated by purpose, committed to inclusion and want to make a genuine difference every day, WSAPC offers a unique opportunity to be part of something special.

An opportunity to shape safeguarding practice across Alternative Provision.

West Sussex Alternative Provision College is looking for an experienced and passionate safeguarding professional to join our Curriculum Access Team as our Safeguarding Practice Lead.

Working across our College, you will help ensure that strong safeguarding practice is consistently applied, proactive and continually improving. This is not a caseload-holding role. Instead, you will work alongside our Centre and Service DSLs to quality assure safeguarding practice, provide advice, guidance and professional challenge, and support colleagues with thresholds, referral pathways and appropriate escalation. A key focus will be helping to embed a strong safeguarding culture across WSAPC, one where staff are professionally curious, concerns are raised early, recording and decision-making are of a consistently high standard, and safeguarding is understood as everyone's responsibility.

You will take a College wide view of safeguarding, using audits, case reviews, safeguarding data and quality assurance of recording and reporting to identify emerging risks, themes, gaps and areas for development. Rather than taking over individual cases, you will support and strengthen the practice of those managing them, ensuring learning is shared and translated into improved policy, training and practice across the College.

You will be an integral member of our Curriculum Access Team, participating in referral panels, working collaboratively with DSLs and other professionals to consider vulnerability and safeguarding context alongside education, attendance, SEND, behaviour, mental health and wider barriers to engagement.

You may already be an experienced DSL or Deputy DSL looking for an opportunity to broaden your impact beyond an individual school or setting. Equally, you may have developed your safeguarding expertise through Early Help, family support, children's services or another safeguarding service and be interested in bringing that experience into education. What matters is that you understand vulnerable children and families, can recognise risk and emerging need, and have the professional confidence to ask questions, challenge appropriately and help others strengthen their practice.

You will understand the importance of good safeguarding decision-making: recognising thresholds, knowing when and where concerns should be referred, and ensuring that safeguarding records clearly demonstrate the concern, professional thinking, action taken and outcome.

You will need strong professional…