Our learning and improvement offer

Find the training that fits your needs

Westmorland and Furness Safeguarding Children Partnership (WFSCP) expects that as a practitioner, working with children and young people, that you have undertaken the mandatory safeguarding training and that you are able to apply the skills required to safeguard children and young people in your setting. 

The WFSCP maintains training levels in line with guidance in Working Together to Safeguard Children, Keeping Children Safe in Education and the Intercollegiate Document and has organised its training into different levels of knowledge and skills. The level required depends on the degree of contact you have with children and families and your professional role. Individual agencies remain responsible for ensuring that their staff are competent and confident to carry out their roles safely including their safeguarding children responsibilities. 

The Multi‑Agency Training Competency Guidance document helps practitioners and volunteers understand which safeguarding training is most appropriate for their role. It outlines the core and supplementary learning modules offered by the Westmorland and Furness Safeguarding Children Partnership and explains how these support the statutory and role‑specific training required within individual organisations.

The guidance signposts agencies to the national competency frameworks relevant to their sector and highlights that employers are responsible for ensuring their staff meet the safeguarding requirements of their role. WFSCP’s multi‑agency training strengthens shared understanding, partnership working and consistent safeguarding practice across Westmorland and Furness.

This is an updated version of the former Which Training is Right for Me document and will be maintained and reviewed through the WFSCP Learning and Practice Improvement Subgroup.

Learning and improvement framework

Working Together legislation stipulates that safeguarding children partnerships need to have a local learning and improvement framework, across local organisations, that work with children and families. 

The responsibility for driving learning and practice improvement lies with the partnership subgroup. The local framework considers learning from single and multi-agency reviews and audit activity, with a fundamental aim of continuing to improve safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children across the partnership. Click to view the current framework

WFSCP Training Strategy - January 2026 (DOCX , 118.2KB)

Our training programme is intended to be reflective of the learning needs across the partnership, responding to our specific priorities and sharing the learning from case review and audit activity. 

The programme covers the basic safeguarding awareness levels of training that all staff require as well as higher level learning opportunities that challenge preconceptions and support robust decision making.

Our training includes:

  • e-learning
  • face to face events
  • practitioner forums

Practitioner forums

The forums provide an opportunity to develop common practice across Westmorland and Furness and help people who work with children and young people learn from each other, understand each other's roles and responsibilities, and become familiar with the local provision in each part of the county.

Through sharing information, networking and discussing available opportunities, the forums foster collaboration and the exchange of ideas to better support children and young people across the region.

You may already have had an invitation to a Practitioner Forum if you have been a regular attendee previously. If you would like to attend future events, or be added to the distribution list email us at WFSCPtraining@cumbria.gov.uk 

We have a Barrow and South Lakeland Practitioner Forum which meets on Teams. The Eden Practitioner Forum meets Face to Face. The Practitioner Forums met in June 2025. 

Future forum dates are currently being arranged and will be listed below once confirmed.