Aims Providing effective safeguarding training to paediatric trainees is vital. The RCPCH approved ‘Child Protection Recognition and Response Course’ utilises pre-course and face-to-face components with role play communication scenarios, and assessment by senior paediatricians. We aimed to investigate common themes in learning which were beneficial in skill acquisition.

Methods 82 paediatric trainees participating in the ‘Child Protection Recognition and Response Course’ were given anonymous pre-course questionnaires and an on-line questionnaire six weeks afterwards. Four questions were posed utilising Likert scales, with an additional post-course free text question (Table 1, responses, Table 2, confidence scores and Table 3, most common themes).

Conclusions Trainees had lowest perceived confidence scores in communicating safeguarding concerns with caregivers, and in relevant referral and legal processes. These were the two areas with the greatest improvement in mean confidence score after the course, although there was clear improvement in all domains. Additionally this was mirrored in the most frequent themes of valued learning: useful approaches when speaking to parents about safeguarding concerns and understanding referral and legal processes.