Policies

We believe that:

• Children and young people should never experience abuse of any kind.
• We have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people, to keep them safe and to work in a way that protects them.

We recognise that:

• The welfare of children and young people is paramount in all the work that we do.
• All children and young people regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation have an equal right to protection from all types of harm or abuse.
• Children and young people with serious illness or disability are at increased risk of abuse.
• Children and young people may be 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 the welfare of children and young people.

We will seek to keep children and young people safe by:

• Valuing, listening to and respecting them.
• Appointing a nominated child protection lead for children and young people and a lead trustee for safeguarding.
• Adopting child protection and safeguarding best practice through our policies, procedures and code of conduct for volunteers.
• Developing and implementing an effective online safety policy.
• Providing effective support and training for volunteers and ensuring that all trustees, committee members, activity leaders and volunteers know about and follow our policies, procedures and codes of behaviour.
• Ensuring all volunteers have appropriate checks.
• Ensuring that information is stored and used professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance. (More information about this is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office.)
• Making sure that children, young people and their families know where to go for help if they have a concern.
• Using our safeguarding and child protection procedures to share concerns and relevant information with agencies who need to know, and involving children, young people, parents, families and carers appropriately.
• Using our procedures to manage any allegations against volunteers appropriately.
• Creating and maintaining an anti-bullying environment and ensuring that we have a policy and procedure to help us deal effectively with any bullying that does arise.
• Ensuring that we have effective complaints and whistleblowing measures in place.
• Building a safeguarding culture where volunteers, children, young people and their families, treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing concerns.