Safeguarding policy

Introduction

The House of Bread acknowledges the duty of care to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and adults at risk and is committed to ensuring safeguarding practice reflects statutory responsibilities, government guidance and complies with best practice requirements.

Every child, young person or adult can be hurt, put at risk of harm or abused. The actions we must take to promote their welfare, and protect them from harm, are the responsibility of us all. Everyone who comes into contact with children or adults has a role to play.

The purpose of this policy is to set out the expectation placed on those working or volunteering at The House of Bread.

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of legislation, policy and guidance that seeks to protect children and vulnerable adults. It applies to The House of Bread even though we do not, ourselves, provide activities for children, young people or vulnerable adults.

Definitions of terms

Abuse – the violation of an individual’s human and civil rights by any other person or persons. This includes physical abuse, emotional and psychological abuse, financial or material abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or acts of omission.
Child – anyone under the age of 14 years.
Young person – any individual aged 14 – 17 years old.
Adult at risk, or vulnerable adult, is defined as ‘a person aged 18 or over whose ability to protect himself or herself from violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation is significantly impaired through physical or mental disability or illness, old age, emotional fragility or distress’.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children – refers to the process of protecting children from maltreatment, preventing the impairment of health or development, ensuring circumstances consistent with the provision and effective care to enable all children to have the best outcome.
Child protection – refers to the processes undertaken to protect children who have been identified as suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm.
Staff – refers to all those working for or on behalf of The House of Bread, full-time or part-time, temporary or permanent, in either a paid or voluntary capacity.

Statement of commitment

As part of our safeguarding policy The House of Bread will:

safely recruit and support staff and volunteers, especially those with any responsibility related to children, young people and vulnerable adults;
promote and prioritise the safety and well-being of children, young people and adults at risk;
ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in respect of safeguarding and is provided with appropriate learning opportunities to recognise, identify and respond to signs of abuse, neglect and other safeguarding concerns relating to children, young people and adults at risk;
only allow those who have received apporpriate safeguarding training to offer one to one emotional support of guests;
where possible give individual support by two people;
undertake any such support in a suitably accessible room but preferably in a public open space;
ensure appropriate action is taken in the event of incidents/concerns of abuse and support provided to the individual/s who raise or disclose the concern;
ensure that confidential, detailed and accurate records of all safeguarding concerns are maintained and securely stored;
ensure robust safeguarding arrangements and procedures are in operation;
respond without delay to every allegation that a child or adult may have been harmed;
value, listen to and respect all children, young people and adults at risk;
take allegations seriously;
record, store and use information professionally and securely in line with data protection legislation and guidance;
carefully select all staff or volunteers;
provide effective management for staff and volunteers;
make and regularly review a risk assessment and note the fact that any practices may be altered and changed as a result of such review;
reognise that safeguarding is a constant work in progress.

The policy and procedures will be widely promoted and are mandatory for everyone involved in The House of Bread. Failure to comply with the policy and procedures will be addressed without delay.

Monitoring

The policy will be reviewed annually:

taking into account changes in legislation and/or government guidance;
or as a result of any other significant change or event.

Responsibilities

The House of Bread will appoint a Safeguarding Officer who will:

take responsibility for working with the Site Wardens and Board to ensure that good practices in child and young people safeguarding are monitored and developed;
ensure that all safeguarding situations are reported;
ensure that training is made available in a timely manner with refresher training when needed;
understand that indivduals can be vulnerable at different times in their lives and that it is important to be able to identify and act on reportable concerns.

The House of Bread expectation is that as part of fulfilling our director and trustee duties, we will take reasonable steps to protect people who come into contact with our charity from harm. This can be interpreted as us having a duty to check any group who regularly uses our premises have their own safeguarding checks in place. This does not include those who come occasionally.

The House of Bread formally adopts this policy and keeps a copy on file and easily available.

The safeguarding officer is not expected to be a safeguarding expert.

The Safeguarding Officer for The House of Bread is Ann Neale.

Any initial concern should be raised with the Safeguarding Officer who will assess the situation and, with the support of the Board of The House of Bread, will take further advice and/or notify the relevant authorities, social care or police.

There will be a written record of any incident completed as soon as possible after the notification of the incident. The responsibility of the volunteer or staff of The House of Bread is not to investigate but to report.