This policy sets out how National LifeSkills Academy keeps children and young people safe. It applies to podcasts, books, courses and any other material that children and young people use directly, whether through a school or by visiting the NLSA website themselves, and to any delivery by NLSA in a school or other setting.

Our commitment

Children and young people have the right to be safe. NLSA material is designed to build their confidence, knowledge and life skills, and never to put them at risk. Safeguarding takes precedence over every commercial or editorial consideration.

Responsibility

The Designated Safeguarding Lead is Dr Laurence H. Brown, who holds Designated Safeguarding Lead training at Level 3 and an enhanced DBS check. Concerns should be raised to: director@nlsa.uk

Content standards

• Material is written for the age group it is aimed at, and is reviewed for age-appropriateness before publication.
• Difficult subjects, including illness, death and bullying, are handled without graphic detail and without sensationalism.
• Material always directs a young person to a trusted adult, and never positions NLSA as a substitute for one.
• Material never gives medical, legal or therapeutic advice, and always signposts to a doctor, a trusted adult or a recognised national support service.
• Where material describes an emergency, young people are taught to recognise it and get adult help, not to act as the responder.
• Material does not depict identifiable real children, and does not use children’s images or words without consent from them and their parent or carer.

Contact and platform safety

• NLSA does not offer one-to-one contact between its staff or associates and a child or young person. Contact is through the school or through a parent or carer.
• NLSA online material does not carry comments, messaging, forums or any other user-generated content, so young people cannot be contacted through it.
• Podcasts and other youth-facing resources on the website are open access and require no account, so no personal data is collected from a young person to use them.
• Outbound links are checked before publication and rechecked at each content review.

Data protection for under-18s

NLSA collects as little personal data from children and young people as possible, and none at all for open access material. Where a school enrols pupils on a course, the school is the data controller for pupil data and NLSA acts as processor under a written agreement. Consent is obtained through the school or the parent or carer, never directly from the child. NLSA has regard to the Information Commissioner’s code of practice on age-appropriate design when designing online material likely to be accessed by children.

If a young person discloses harm

A disclosure may reach NLSA by email, through a school, or during a session. Anyone receiving a young person’s disclosure must listen, not promise confidentiality, record what was said in the young person’s own words, and pass it to the Designated Safeguarding Lead the same day.

The Lead refers to the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead where the young person is known to a school, and otherwise to the relevant local authority children’s social care team, or to the police where a child is in immediate danger. NLSA does not investigate.

People

• Anyone working with children on behalf of NLSA holds an enhanced DBS check and current safeguarding training, renewed at least every three years.
• Everyone works to a code of conduct covering appropriate contact, language and behaviour.
• Allegations against a member of NLSA staff or an associate are referred to the local authority designated officer.

Working in schools

When delivering in a school, NLSA works under that school’s safeguarding policy and reports concerns to its Designated Safeguarding Lead. NLSA staff are never left in sole, unsupervised charge of pupils unless the school has agreed this in writing and has seen the relevant DBS check.

Related guidance and review

This policy has regard to Keeping Children Safe in Education and to Working Together to Safeguard Children. It is reviewed annually, and immediately after any safeguarding incident.

National LifeSkills Academy Ltd  |  Child and Young Person Safeguarding Policy  |  v1.0 September 2026