Introduction and context
Ella Roberta Family Foundation (ERFF) is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children or vulnerable people, when they come into contact with the services that ERFF provides. These procedures should be read and considered in the context of the London Safeguarding Children or vulnerable people’s Board (LSCB) Children and vulnerable people Protection Procedures and ERFF Children and vulnerable people safeguarding procedure.
At the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, we believe in a world where clean air is a human right. We think everyone should be able to breathe air that is free from toxic pollution, regardless of where they live, their economic status or their ethnic background. Our work is campaigning for the UK government to reduce air pollution targets to those recommended in the WHO 2021 guidelines. In addition, our work is to raise awareness about the impact air pollution has on the general public’s health and most especially their children’s health and where to get information on air pollution levels.
Scope
This Policy and related Procedures and guidance apply to all employees and volunteers working on behalf of ERFF, whose work involves contact with children or vulnerable people, whether in the community or on ERFF premises.
Service providers shall comply with the terms of this policy and procedure and shall ensure that their employees and sub-contractors do likewise throughout the duration of the contract.
The Board of Trustees share responsibility with employees, volunteers and service providers in relation to ERFF. Therefore, all aspects of this policy apply equally to Members of the Board.
The Policy
This policy is for all employees and volunteers of ERFF and should be read in conjunction with:
Legislation, Guidance and Reference
The Policy and Procedures have been developed in line with the principles of The Children Act 2004, the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2009, the Children and Families Act 2014, the Equality Act 2010, the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and with reference to the following:
The application of the ERFF ’s Children and vulnerable people Protection and Safeguarding Policy and Procedures is based on the following key principles:
ERFF will work within a framework provided by: the Data Protection Act 1998 / GDPR 2018, the Human Rights Act 2000, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Information Sharing protocol (2015) and will respect the need for confidentiality where appropriate, the welfare of the child or vulnerable persons will always take precedence over other concerns.
Accountability
Accountability for ensuring that ERFF fulfils its Children and vulnerable people protection responsibilities falls to the Chair and Board of Trustees of ERFF and is delegated to ERFF Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL).
Role of ERFF Designated Safeguarding Lead and/or Chair of the Board of Trustees include:
The Safeguarding Lead (also a Board of Trustees member) is responsible for ensuring that the activities that they are involved in during the course of their work are carried out in accordance with this policy, protocols and procedures relating to it.
ERFF supports information sharing and working in partnership with our Local Authority partners to work together to meet the needs of Children and vulnerable people and their families.
Safer Recruitment Responsibility of the DSL and Employees Involved in Recruitment:
As part of safeguarding children and vulnerable people, the DSL and all managerial Employees will:
Role of Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
A member of management will take on the role of Deputy Designated Lead. They are responsible for supporting the Designated Lead in implementing the Safeguarding Policy and acting in the capacity of the Lead in the absence of the Designated Lead. Their role is to:
Responsibility of employees:
Training
Management & Designated Safeguarding Lead Training
Operational & Administrative Employees Training
Forms of Abuse
Abuse can take many forms. These include:
Significant Harm: some vulnerable people may be in need because they are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. The Children Act V section 47 (1) introduced the concept of significant harm as the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interest of the young person.
Protection from Harm or Abuse
It is the responsibility of everyone at ERFF to promote the safety of the children and vulnerable people we work with. Employees, volunteers, trustee members and service providers are always expected to maintain a sense of proportion, apply common sense to situations and protect the child’ or the vulnerable person’s welfare as the key priority.
It is also the charity’s duty to ensure that employees, volunteers, trustees and service providers are never placed in situations where abuse might be alleged. It is not intended that the policy should restrict employees, volunteers, trustee members and service providers from normal ways of working, but they always need to consider how an action or activity may be perceived as opposed to how it is intended.
Promoting Good Practice with Children and vulnerable people
Employees, volunteers, trustees and service providers working for ERFF may have regular contact with Children and vulnerable people and are an important link in identifying where a vulnerable person may need protection. Equally, employees, volunteers and service providers, Children and vulnerable people should be aware of what is expected and what unacceptable behaviour is. Adhering to these guidelines will help employees, volunteers and service providers to protect themselves from false allegations and help create a positive culture and climate:
Employees; volunteers, trustees and service providers should never:
NB The above guidance should not be considered exhaustive. If employees; volunteers and service providers have any concerns regarding the appropriateness of any practice/action they should discuss this with the ERFF Safeguarding Lead or other board members.
Photography & Videos
ERFF relies heavily on photography (and sound recording/videos) to use for promotion and as a way of communicating with other children and young people, parents/carers and funders. We always ask for parent/guardian informed and written consent to take and use photographs/video on our consent forms and letters for each new activity or event involving children and young people. Where a young person is over the age of 18, we will obtain their informed and written consent on our consent form. All consent forms are stored within our filing system(?.
Informed consent means that a child or other person is made aware of how their image or information (e.g. as part of a case study) could be used by ERFF, that they are not obliged to agree and that if they decline there will be no negative repercussions for them.
Written consent means that there is written evidence of the consent. This can be on the basis of verbal consent where the person is not literate, but there must still be written evidence that informed consent has been given.
Recognition of Poor Practice, Abuse and Bullying:
Poor practice
Poor practice includes any behaviour that contravenes the guidelines set out in this Children and Vulnerable People Protection Policy and Safeguarding Procedure or the:
Abuse Even for those experienced in working with children or vulnerable people, abuse is not always easy to recognise in a situation where abuse may occur or has already taken place. Whilst it is accepted that employees; volunteers and service providers are not experts at such recognition, they do have a responsibility to act if they have any concerns about the behaviour of someone (an adult or a child or vulnerable person) towards a child or vulnerable person. All employees, volunteers and service providers have a duty to discuss any concerns they may have about the welfare of Children and vulnerable people immediately to members of the board or the ERFF Safeguarding Lead.
Abuse is a form of maltreatment of a child or vulnerable person; somebody may abuse or neglect a child or vulnerable person by inflicting harm or by failing to prevent harm. It can take many forms but is usually divided into four categories.
Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child or vulnerable person’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in serious impairment of health and development. Neglect is by far the most common form of abuse. Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse for example. Once the child or vulnerable person is born neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:
Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning, scalding, drowning, giving Children and vulnerable people alcohol and/or inappropriate drugs, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to children or vulnerable people. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer feigns the symptoms of or deliberately causes ill health to a child or vulnerable person whom they are looking after.
Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional maltreatment of Children and vulnerable people that would adversely affect their emotional development. It may involve:
Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of ill-treatment of children or vulnerable people, though it may occur alone.
Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing Children and vulnerable people to take part in sexual activities, including prostitution, whether or not the Children and vulnerable people are aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative and non-penetrative acts.
Sexual activities may also include non-contact activities, e.g. involving Children and vulnerable people in looking at, or in the production of abusive images, watching sexual activities or encouraging them to behave in sexually inappropriate ways. This may include the use of photographs, pictures, cartoons, literature or sound recordings e.g. the internet, books, magazines, tapes, films, videos, podcasts, CDs.
Children and vulnerable people under 16 years of age cannot provide lawful consent to any sexual activity, though in practice many are involved in sexual contact to which, as individuals, they may have agreed.
Indicators of Abuse
It is important to remember that Children and vulnerable people may suffer or be at risk of suffering from one or more types of abuse and that abuse may take place on a single occasion or may occur repeatedly over time. There are no absolute criteria on which to rely when judging what constitutes significant harm, the following indicators on the signs and symptoms may be consistent with abuse; but Children and vulnerable people may exhibit them for other reasons. For this reason, any concerns about Children and vulnerable people must be raised with a board member or ERFF Safeguarding Lead at the earliest opportunity.
Bullying
It is important to recognise that abuse is not always carried out by an adult on children or vulnerable people; the abuser may be a young person, for example, in the case of bullying. Bullying may be seen to be deliberately hurtful behaviour, usually repeated over a period of time, where it is difficult for those bullied to defend themselves.
Although anyone can be a target for bullying, victims are typically shy, sensitive and perhaps anxious and insecure. Sometimes they are singled out for physical reasons – being overweight, physically small, having a disability or belonging to a different race, faith or culture. Bullying can and does occur anywhere where there is inadequate supervision – on the way to and from school for example.
Bullies come from all walks of life; they bully for a variety of reasons and may have been bullied or abused themselves. Typically, bullies have low self-esteem, are excitable, aggressive and jealous.
Crucially, they have learned how to gain power over others.
Bullying may be:
It can cause considerable distress to children or vulnerable people, to the extent that it affects their health and development or, at the extreme, causes them significant harm (including self-harm).
Incorporating “Prevent” into Safeguarding
The Prevent strategy, published by the Government in 2011, is part of the overall counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. The aim of the Prevent strategy is to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. In the Act, this has simply been expressed as the need to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”
The Prevent strategy seeks to:
With their wide-ranging responsibilities and democratic accountability to their electorate, local authorities are vital to Prevent work. Local authorities will be working with their local partners to protect the public, prevent crime and promote strong, integrated communities.
At ERFF we ensure that we understand the Prevent Strategy as implemented by our Local Authority partners and provide awareness learning to the front-line staff so that they are aware of the risk factors and indicators.
Frontline staff who engage with the public should understand what radicalisation means and why people may be vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism as a consequence of it. They need to be aware of what we mean by the term “extremism” and the relationship between extremism and terrorism. They must also know how to report and document it. Reporting concerns that a young or vulnerable person is being ‘drawn into terrorism’ should follow the reporting procedure of the Local Safeguarding Partnership, as outlined in the ‘Reporting Safeguarding Incidents’ procedure.
Responding to suspicions and allegations of abuse and poor practice
It is important to maintain an open culture where employees; volunteers and service providers, children or vulnerable people, parents or carers feel able to express concern about children and vulnerable people safeguarding issues and issues of dealing with children or vulnerable people.
This procedure and guidance apply whenever it is alleged that employees, volunteers and service providers including permanent, temporary, contract and agency employees or Board of Trustees have:
If an allegation relating to Children and vulnerable people is made about a person who undertakes paid or unpaid work with vulnerable people, consideration must be given to the possible need to alert ERFF Safeguarding Lead or a board member.
Any employees, volunteers and service providers or Children and vulnerable people reporting concerns under this Policy are assured that their concerns will be taken seriously and treated sensitively. Formal referrals from professionals cannot be treated as anonymous and the parent will ultimately become aware of the identity of the referrer.
ERFF will not tolerate harassment of any employees; volunteers and service providers or Children and vulnerable people who raise concerns of Children and vulnerable people abuse. Such harassment will be dealt with under disciplinary procedures, and ERFF will robustly support any ensuing investigation by any recognised authority.
False allegations do occur. However, if Children and vulnerable people indicate that they are being abused, or information is obtained which gives concern that Children and vulnerable people are being abused, this should never be ignored. Any allegation of abuse must be reported to the ERFF Safeguarding Lead.
Responding to Disclosure (a young person making a disclosure or allegation):
Action to be taken:
The volunteer or service provider receiving information should:
Actions to be avoided:
The person receiving information should not:
Responding to suspicions of abuse
It is essential that employees; volunteers and service providers understand that abuse is a complex issue, and that diagnosis of the validity of an allegation is the responsibility of relevant, expert agencies. The role of employees; volunteers and service providers is to report and refer any concerns, not to investigate or judge. All allegations about employees; volunteers and service providers that fall within the scope of this policy and procedure are to be followed up and examined by the ERFF Safeguarding Lead.
Consultation with Social Services
ERFF policy is in the first instance to refer any concerns to the ERFF Safeguarding Lead and then enter into a dialogue with social workers subsequently particularly where there is doubt about the level of intervention required by social services. The purpose of the consultation with Children or vulnerable people or Adult Social Care is to assist the potential referrer to decide whether to make a formal referral.
Confidentiality
Every effort should be made to ensure that confidentiality is maintained for all concerned. Information should be handled and disseminated on a need-to-know basis only. This is required in order to:
It is expected that those involved on a need-to-know basis would include the following:
Any information will be stored in a secure place with access limited to those involved in the investigation in line with Data Protection and UK GDPR.