Is your safeguarding policy up to scratch?
Ensuring that children, young people and vulnerable adults are safe is important. Recently, in common with many funders, we have revisited what we expect the groups we fund to have in place before they apply to us.
We expect all groups to have a safeguarding policy in place that covers staff, trustees and volunteers and anyone who comes into contact with them. If your group works with children, young people or vulnerable adults we would expect you to have appropriate practices and procedures in place to ensure that the most vulnerable people in our community are protected from harm. We would expect this to include community buildings, like village halls, that host such groups on their premises.
Your safeguarding policy should:
- include definitions of abuse, signs of abuse and a description of how abuse is different for adults if you work with both children and vulnerable adults
- show that risk assessments are carried out to ensure that vulnerable adults or children in your care are safe
- include the procedures you have in place for reporting safeguarding concerns.
- state the name and contact details of the designated Safeguarding Officer for the organisation
- state the name of the local Safeguarding Board and other relevant agencies.
- ensure that all staff, volunteers and trustees who work directly or indirectly with vulnerable adults or children receive safeguarding training (including people who join after a project has already started)
- ensure that all staff, volunteers and trustees who are working directly with vulnerable adults or children have the appropriate DBS check and show that you know when enhanced DBS checks should be carried out
- indicate the procedure for handling cases of disclosure revealed by DBS checks
- show how often the policy is reviewed.
We know that putting these things in place can feel overwhelming and be confusing. The NCVO website has some useful information to help you. For local support please contact Spark Somerset www.sparksomerset.org.uk or Smart Communities www.smartcommunities.online
