I am Barbara Veeramallay-Permaul, an independent Designated Safeguarding Lead. My work is to carry a leader's worry with them until it lightens, and to help safeguarding become something a school lives, not something it dreads before an inspection.
For years I have worked with schools and religious communities in the United Kingdom, sitting with leaders who care deeply and who feel the weight of getting safeguarding right. The framework is different in the UAE, but the human reality is the same. A head, a governor, or a designated lead, holding real responsibility for children, wanting to do right by them, and not always sure they have missed nothing.
British-curriculum schools in the UAE already work to Keeping Children Safe in Education, the same standard I know intimately. Alongside it sit the Unified Inspection Framework, Wadeema's Law, and now a new and rising focus on children's online safety. That is a great deal to hold at once. I am bringing Safeguarding Assured to the UAE because I believe schools here deserve the same independent, practical support I offer at home, from someone who reads everything, will not flatter, and will not frighten.
A trusted independent voice for your designated lead and your leadership, through the year rather than only at inspection. Somewhere to take the difficult question and think it through with someone outside the school.
Child protection policy and the procedures beneath it, reviewed and aligned to your regulators, to Wadeema's Law, and to the direction set by the new digital safety law, with clear ownership and a dated review cycle so nothing drifts.
An honest picture of where you stand, mapped across the framework, with every gap paired to what to do, who owns it, and by when. No surprises when the inspectors arrive.
Training for staff and governors, supervision for your designated lead, and calm, confident support at the moment an allegation is made, when it matters most.
Practical help to strengthen your online-safety culture and provision, so your school moves with the direction the UAE has now set for children online.
Safeguarding assurance is not a course you buy and file away. It is a person who has read everything, who welcomes hard questions, and who stays alongside you until the work is done.
An independent adviser has no stake in telling you what you want to hear. My only interest is that the children in your care are safe and that you can show, with confidence, that they are. That independence is what lets me be both honest and kind, which is exactly what safeguarding asks of all of us.
No obligation, and no pressure. If safeguarding assurance is on your mind this year, it does not have to be faced alone.
Book a call with BarbaraBarbara Veeramallay-Permaul · Independent Designated Safeguarding Lead · Safeguarding Assured by BVPSkills
Draft page for Barbara's review, held off the public site until sign-off. Legal and regulatory references drawn from public sources and to be confirmed before issue.