Safeguarding on Pathway Skills

If you’re a learner

Your training provider is responsible for your safeguarding while you study with them. If something is worrying you, talk to your tutor, or to the person at your provider who looks after safeguarding. This is often called the Designated Safeguarding Lead.

When you’re signed in, the bottom of each page shows your provider’s safeguarding contact if they have added one. If it doesn’t, ask your tutor who to speak to.

You can also email the Pathway Skills support team at help@pathway-skills.com. We’re a general helpdesk, not a safeguarding lead. We read this inbox between 09:00 and 17:00, so if you need help sooner, use the numbers on this page. On the day we read your message, we will pass it to your training provider’s safeguarding lead. If it is about your provider or someone who works there, we will pass it to your local council instead. If we think someone is in danger, we will call the police. We can’t keep a safeguarding concern secret, but we only share it with the people who need to know.

If the concern is about your training provider

Tell a different senior person there, such as their safeguarding lead or the person in charge. If you’re under 18, or you’re worried about a child, you can contact children’s services at your local council (gov.uk/report-child-abuse-to-local-council). Councils have a Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) who deals with concerns about adults who work with children. You can also raise a safeguarding concern about a training provider with the Department for Education through its customer help portal (customerhelpportal.education.gov.uk). Parents, carers and employers worried about a learner should contact the learner’s training provider.

If you need to talk to someone now

These services are free to contact.

• SamaritansCall 116 123 (Samaritans)Free, any time of day or night, for anyone who is struggling.
• ShoutText SHOUT to 85258 (Shout)Free text support, any time of day or night.
• ChildlineCall 0800 1111 (Childline)Free and confidential, any time of day or night, for anyone under 19.
• NSPCC helplineCall 0808 800 5000 (NSPCC helpline)For adults worried about a child or young person. Phone lines are open Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm.
• National Domestic Abuse HelplineCall 0808 2000 247 (National Domestic Abuse Helpline)Run by Refuge for women. Free, any time of day or night.
• Men’s Advice LineCall 0808 801 0327 (Men’s Advice Line)For men experiencing domestic abuse. Free, Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm.
• ACT EarlyCall 0800 011 3764 (ACT Early)If you’re worried someone is being drawn into extremism or terrorism. Any time of day or night, in confidence.

What Pathway Skills does

Pathway Skills is an online learning and assessment platform for training providers delivering courses such as Functional Skills Maths and English. We don’t employ your tutors, and the platform does not replace your provider’s own safeguarding arrangements.

Miles, the AI study helper

In the Miles study chat, Miles looks for some clearly worded messages about suicide, self-harm, being hurt by a partner or family member, going without food, or being homeless. When it spots one, it doesn’t answer the study question. Instead it asks the learner to talk to their tutor or pastoral lead, and gives their provider’s safeguarding contact if the provider has added one, or the Pathway Skills helpdesk address if not.

The conversation is then flagged in that learner’s Miles history, which staff at their provider can see, and we keep a record that this happened. If the provider has added a safeguarding email address, we also email it. If not, nobody is emailed.

Miles is a computer program. It only recognises some clearly worded messages and will miss others, and it sometimes pauses a conversation that didn’t need it. It doesn’t check answers it marks (in practice, tests or mock exams) or messages to tutors. It is never a substitute for talking to a person.

For training providers

An organisation manager can add your safeguarding lead’s name and email address in your organisation settings. Learners then see them at the bottom of their pages, and Miles uses them as described above. Until you add them, learners are told to ask their tutor.

Miles’s check is not a filtering or monitoring system, and messages sent through Pathway Skills are not checked. Include Pathway Skills and Miles in your online safety policy, and make sure someone reviews flagged conversations. Without a safeguarding email address, flagged conversations only show in each learner’s Miles history.

How we handle personal information is set out in our privacy policy.