Will I be held accountable if I don’t write an action plan for a priority student, and they harm themselves or others?”

We can all relate to this worry. We want to know that we did everything we could to keep young people safe. Let's consider these points.

1. First, the purpose of the STEER Assessment is to highlight students with emerging risks. Not all emerging risks are equal, and you’ll have to make a professional judgement as to how you deploy your limited resources. You may actively monitor some students, whilst writing action plans for others. Both actions are valid, and both are time-stamped and logged on your school STEER platform.
2. Second, because STEER ranks students by priority, you can easily identify those students whose risks are increasing over time, or have suddenly fluctuated. In these cases, we strongly encourage you to write an action plan to ensure this student gets the support they need.