Overview
Concern management helps your organisation identify and review potential concerns raised by learners in conversations with the Aptem virtual assistant (AVA). When AVA detects that a learner may be sharing a personal concern, the conversation is flagged for review by the people in your organisation who hold the Concern management permission.
Concern management supports your own safeguarding procedures. It does not replace them, and it should not be your only record of a concern.
How concern management works
When a learner sends AVA a message that suggests a personal concern about their safety or wellbeing:
AVA replaces the learner's message in the conversation with "Your message has been received."
AVA responds with a supportive message that includes your designated safeguarding lead (DSL) contact details.
The conversation is flagged, and everyone with the Concern management permission receives a notification.
A user with the permission reviews the flagged item and records a decision.
AVA takes the context of a conversation into account. A learner asking about safeguarding or mental health as part of their course content is treated differently from a learner describing a personal concern.
Before you start
Add your DSL contact details in tenant settings. AVA shares these with learners when a concern is detected. If no contact details are added, AVA tells the learner their tutor can help instead.
Assign the Concern management permission
The Concern management permission is off by default. You can assign it to more than one user, for example your safeguarding lead and your Prevent lead.
Navigate to the Users token.
Select the admin you want to give access to and click on the edit pencil to add additional roles.
Move the Concern management role to assigned from available.
Select Save.
We recommend at least one person in your organisation holds this permission. If nobody holds it, concerns are still flagged, but nobody is notified and the items are deleted after the retention period without being seen.
How long flagged data is kept
Flagged items are kept for 90 days, then deleted automatically. Nobody can delete an item by hand. If you need to keep a record for longer, export it before it is deleted. For more information, see Review and export flagged items in concern management.