Railway Children: Safeguarding on public transport

About

Railway Children is a leading charity fighting for children at risk on the streets and transport networks of the UK, India and Africa.

In partnership with the British Transport Police, Railway Children developed ‘Safeguarding on Transport’ awareness training to educate UK transport staff about the issues faced by vulnerable children on and around the transport network, and to enable them to identify and protect those at risk.

The challenge

Initially, Railway Children used a train-the-trainer model which required ‘Champions’ to attend a half day course to train them to deliver short awareness sessions to their colleagues.

There were, however, issues with this delivery model. It was difficult to get staff released to attend Champions training, and there was no quality assurance regarding the awareness session delivery and a lack of reporting on sessions delivered.

Eventually, following a survey, the need for a more efficient learning delivery for the training was highlighted, and so Railway Children sought to find a provider to design bespoke digital learning to take the training online.

What was our solution?

• A bespoke digital learning course built in Articulate Storyline.
• Engaging and interactive activities to provide opportunity for management to report on the level of understanding by learners.
• Case studies included to add relevance and provide realistic examples, including a short film to provide an overview of the initiative.

Key success factors

1. To be able to track delivery and understanding of content.
2. Provision of an engaging and interactive training experience for transport staff.
3. A way to easily share and communicate the programme to a wide-reaching audience

Key drivers

• At the time, the Safeguarding on Transport awareness training was the only training
  programme that met recently introduced safeguarding training requirements set by the Department for Transport, therefore effective delivery, monitoring and evaluation were essential.
• Superintendent Richard Mann from the British Transport Police said: “Keeping people safe is an absolute priority for us. We all have a responsibility to protect children and adults in our community.”

Our approach and results

Originally, Railway Children felt that two separate modules were required - one for training champions and the other to support training delivery. After a scoping meeting, however, Learning Nexus worked with Railway Children to enable them to understand that the courses didn’t need to be replicated and they could save money and provide greater value by merging content into one course.

Throughout the course, interactive elements are used to ensure the learner has the opportunity to engage with the content. For example, a sliding bar activity is used at the beginning to gauge the learner’s existing knowledge, and a crossword
is used at the end of the course to test learner’s understanding.

Case studies are used throughout to bring safeguarding issues to light and free-text fields are also used to encourage learners to really think about an individual’s personal circumstance.

Since launching the course to various stakeholders, the response to the course from Railway Children has been positive.

The course offers comprehensive training and development for organisations across the UK, allowing them to raise awareness, and support the safeguarding of children and adults on transport.

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