Lincolnshire SCB Case Study

About Lincolnshire SCB

Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) is a statutory multi-agency board made up of representatives from the Local Authority, Police, Health Service, Probation and Rehabilitation companies, Youth Offending Service, the Voluntary Sector and others. Its vision is that every child and young person in Lincolnshire is safeguarded via the provision of accessible, timely, co-ordinated, high quality, multi-agency services to children, young people and families.

The Challenge

Ensuring a large number of staff from these multifarious agencies are appropriately trained is a huge challenge

Lincolnshire is one of the UK’s largest counties so LSCB covers potential learners who are geographically dispersed over a wide rural area. Previously, LSCB ran 6 to 7 face-to-face training events a year but it was not possible to reach all staff requiring training in this way. With regular round trips of over 100 miles for delegates, these were costly events to operate and there was no accurate way of checking the level of learning engagement and understanding.

A paper-based system was used to manage course administration with letters sent to confirm attendance. As well as being a costly administration exercise, awareness of courses available amongst potential learners was often poor, resulting in low attendance levels on some face-to-face courses.

Prior to its decision to join Virtual College’s Safeguarding Children e-Academy, LSCB researched several online learning providers in its quest to improve this situation. The quality of the learning solution on offer from learning providers and the cost effectiveness of their potential solutions, were key considerations.

/n/n### The Solution

Collaborative Working
LSCB joined Virtual College’s Safeguarding Children e-Academy as a founding member in June 2006. This collaboration combines safeguarding expertise with Virtual College’s e-learning capabilities to develop child protection courses.

Blended Learning
LSCB integrates online learning with face-to-face training, ensuring learners complete foundational e-learning before in-person sessions. This approach standardizes knowledge levels, reducing training time.

Initially, some resisted e-learning due to poor past experiences. However, Virtual College’s courses incorporate animations, interactivity, and audio for engagement.

Technology Adoption
Advancements in broadband and technical support from Virtual College have resolved early accessibility issues. LSCB uses Virtual College’s Enable learning management system (LMS) to manage and allocate training requests.

Through the LSCB website, learners can book courses at convenient times. The LMS, managed by a single LSCB staff member with Virtual College’s support, hosted 75 events with 1,227 attendees last year. Automated reminders improve attendance, and agencies receive reports to track compliance with mandatory safeguarding training.

The Results

Since joining the Virtual College’s Safeguarding e-Academy, over 45,000 online courses have been passed by LSCB learners across the width and breadth of Lincolnshire – almost 10,000 in the last year alone. LSCB has access to over 26 online courses covering a wide variety of safeguarding topics including several variants of the ‘Awareness of Child Abuse and Neglect’ course created to meet the varying needs of the diverse range of learners.

The average cost per course passed works out at an economical £3.23 each. Integrating online learning into a blended solution is enabling LSCB to provide relevant training quickly, flexibly and cost effectively.