Safeguarding Policy

What is Safeguarding?

 Safeguarding is the protection of children and adults at risk of harm.

NSPCC defines safeguarding children as ‘action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding means:

·       protecting children from abuse and maltreatment

·       preventing harm to children’s health or development

·       ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care

·       taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes’.

Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child’. You can read more about this on their website: Safeguarding children and child protection | NSPCC Learning

The Care Act (2014) defines adult safeguarding as: ‘protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect. It is about people and organisations working together to prevent and stop both the risks and experience of abuse and neglect, while at the same time making sure that the adult’s wellbeing is promoted including, where appropriate, having regard to their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs in deciding on any action’.  

The purpose of this policy

This policy seeks to:

·       protect children, young people and adults at risk of harm who receive services from Unique Connections.

·       provide all of Unique Connections stakeholders – organisations, schools, care homes, professionals, families and staff - with the overarching principles that guide our approach to safeguarding.

This policy applies to anyone working, volunteering or affiliated with Unique Connections in any way. It has been drawn up with reference to relevant UK legislation.

Unique Connections recognises that:

·       the welfare of the child or adult at risk of harm is paramount; we are committed to safeguarding children and adults to ensure their well-being;

·       all children and adults at risk of harm, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation have a right to equal protection from all types of harm or abuse;

·       some children are additionally vulnerable because of the impact of previous experiences, their level of dependency, communication needs or other issues;

·       working in partnership with children, young people, their parents, carers and other agencies is essential in promoting young people’s welfare.

 We promote the well-being and safety of children and adults at risk of harm by:

·       valuing, listening to and respecting children and adults; regardless of communication style, we will always seek to ascertain the wishes and feelings of an individual we meet or work with;

·       developing child protection and safeguarding policies and procedures which reflect best practice;

·       using our safeguarding procedures to share concerns and relevant information with agencies who need to know, and involving children, young people, parents, families and carers appropriately;

·       fully cooperating with the statutory safeguarding authorities (social services and police) as the occasion arises;

·       recruiting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary checks are made;

·       providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support, training and quality assurance measures;

·       implementing a code of conduct for staff and volunteers;

·       using our procedures to manage any allegations against staff and volunteers appropriately;

·       ensuring that we have effective complaints and whistleblowing measures in place;

·       ensuring that we provide a safe physical environment for our children, young people, staff and volunteers, by applying health and safety measures in accordance with the law and regulatory guidance;

·       recording and storing information professionally and securely;

·       following UK legislation and safeguarding guidance.

This policy should be read in conjunction with the following policies:

·       Code of conduct

·       Complaints policy

·       Whistle-blowing policy

·       Data privacy policy

Safeguarding Policy 

It is the expectation that everyone working with Unique Connections, whether employed or contracted, will have read and agreed to fully adhere to this policy as a condition of continuing in their role.

It is also expected that all staff have annual safeguarding training, and that they are conversant with the key legislative guidance, namely: Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018), Keeping Children Safe in Education (2022); The Care Act (2014) and The Mental Capacity Act (2015).

All staff will have an up-to-date enhanced DBS record for working with children and adults, and preferably will register with the update service, to ease of checks from partner organisations.

Our safeguarding policy is also provided to any new organisation at the outset, as part of our terms and conditions and prior to entering a contract. We also expect to receive the safeguarding policy from any organisation that we enter into a contract with, as it is best practice to know who the Safeguarding Lead is before engaging in partnership working.

 In providing this statement about commitment to safeguarding, we hope to demonstrate our commitment to ensuring the safety of all. We endeavour to cultivate a safe, healthy culture, where the welfare of the child, young person and adult is paramount. We strive to act and respond to situations with sensitivity, whilst remaining open, transparent and accountable. This may mean seeking advice and liaising with Social Services, Police and other agencies as necessary.

Safeguarding procedures

 Any Unique Connections employee has a responsibility to ensure that any children or adult they come into contact with during the course of their work are safe, protected from harm and that their best interests are being kept central. This is particularly pertinent as children and adults with disabilities are at a higher risk of abuse (Miller and Brown, 2014) and are identified by the DfE as requiring particular alertness from professionals (Department for Education (DfE), 2020).

Currently, all of our contractual work is conducted on the site of the organisation using our services. Before contractual work commences, Unique Connections staff will familiarise themselves with the organisation’s safeguarding policies and procedures and identify the safeguarding lead. During the course of working with the organisation, if anything is witnessed that compromises the safety of a child or adult risk of harm in any way, it is our duty to report it to the safeguarding lead and follow up to ensure what action has been taken. This includes poor practice in documentation, or presentations of signs of abuse by children, young people or adults at risk of harm.

Should there be a safeguarding investigation into partner organisations in the future, it may be that the any data that Unique Connections has stored is requested as part of the investigation, in which case it would be handed over. Please see the Privacy Policy for details of how and for how long information is stored.

As Unique Connections offers training and consultancy, it is not expected that any staff would interact unsupervised with a child or adult at risk of harm. In many circumstances, consultancy and training is best delivered in response to the particular needs of a child or adult, and so meeting the child or adult and conducting observations to inform the support required is common practice for Unique Connections. However, it is not expected that this would lead to unsupervised interactions with children or adults at risk of harm.

In the event of a concern or complaint of any kind, including safeguarding, please refer to Unique Connections whistle-blowing policy; it would be expected that any safeguarding concerns related to a Unique Connections employee would be followed up in conjunction with your own organisation’s Safeguarding policy and procedure.

Safeguarding concerns would be initially investigated by the director, Beverley Samways. Safeguarding concerns raised about Beverley, would be investigated by the Jenny Cavendish, Senior Advisor.

For more information about this policy, please contact beverley@uniqueconnections.org.uk.