Safeguarding

Voluntary and community groups play an important role in providing services and activities for children, young people and adults. In UK law, someone is a child until they are 18 years old. It is essential that the services and activities your group offers are as safe as they can be, and to ensure this, there is a need to have safeguards in place.

Having safeguards in place will help your group protect children, young people and adults from harm and abuse as well as help staff and volunteers know what to do if they are worried or concerned about a child or adult.

Wales Safeguarding Procedures

The new Wales Safeguarding Procedures launched this week provide guidance to practitioners involved in safeguarding on how things should be done. The attached FAQ document provides more background information on the procedures and how to access them.

Wales Safeguarding Procedures Frequently Asked Questions

Safeguarding Duties for Trustees

Protecting people and safeguarding responsibilities should be a governance priority for all charities. The following is a link to guidance which will support trustees to put systems in place that will protect all who come in contact with their organisation.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safeguarding-duties-for-charity-trustees

Conwy Safeguarding Community of Practice – update April 2020

On 23 April we were due to hold a Safeguarding Community of Practice event. Obviously, this had to be cancelled. However, not to be beaten we have put some information together for you plus a few links below. We hope you will find it useful during these extraordinary times and help safeguard yourselves and the communities you support.

Safeguarding Information Community Of Practice - Update

Welsh Government made an announcement recently saying that emergency legislation will ‘ease’ rules on Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

This will not remove checks altogether, but allow a check from one organization to be used at another. This is intended to allow a greater number of people to volunteer more easily and to allow them to be more simply utilised in areas of greatest need.

WCVA has written a briefing paper, highlighting what the voluntary sector needs to know about DBS checks as the COVID-19 crisis progresses.

The paper covers:

The procedure behind basic checks
Suggesting wording for a disclosure form
Guidance when your new volunteers already have a DBS certificate
How to view DBS certificates via videoconferencing software
Formal and informal portable DBS checks
Reminders for when first applying for a new check
Guidance on adult first checks
Some useful links

Suzanne Mollison, WCVA Safeguarding Officer, said: ‘The community response to meeting the needs of those who are most at risk during the coronavirus epidemic has been impressive, and even overwhelming. It is so important that everyone keeps up to date with the latest guidance, from all reputable sources, about keeping themselves, and those around them, safe. Things are changing rapidly around us, but our response should be measured, and where possible, calm. We may feel under demand to deliver at speed but should plan as if building for the long term.

‘DBS checks are a vitally important tool to prevent all manner of harm and abuse as new volunteers and services come online. Like all tools we should use them wisely, and within the broader context of good safeguarding practice. The circumstances may place those at risk under greater threat than previously known and this should never be overlooked.’

Read the full briefing paper here.

WCVA publishes a daily briefing on the voluntary sector’s response to the coronavirus crisis. You can sign up for it here.

Safeguarding & DBS Factsheet: FAQS

Protecting Older People in Wales from Crime and Scams

Older people in Wales should continue to be vigilant to protect themselves from crime and scams during the Covid-19 pandemic as they can be a particular target for criminals.

That’s the message from an action group¹ of organisations working together to ensure that older people are safeguarded and protected during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Criminals are exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown measures to steal from and defraud older people throughout Wales, using sophisticated techniques to get individuals to part with money, share personal information or buy goods or services that do not exist.

Click here for full press release

Click here for Information Pack

Non-statutory guide for practitioners

The Welsh Government has produced this non-statutory guide to remind practitioners working across agencies of their responsibilities to safeguard children and to support them in responding to concerns about children at risk.

https://gov.wales/keeping-children-and-young-people-safe-non-statutory-guide-practitioners

This guide links to and should be used with the national Wales Safeguarding Procedures . You can download the procedures onto your mobile phone. Links for downloading the App are at the bottom of the landing page on the website at the link above. Once you have downloaded the App you do not need to have a Wi-Fi connection to view them.

Keeping children and young people safe

Internet Safety

The Stop it Now public awareness campaign is aimed at tackling the increased viewing and sharing of illegal images of children.

The campaign website offers a wide range of resources and information to help people stop viewing and sharing sexual images, and to support the families and friends of people who access sexual images of children.

The following links have been provided by Conwy Youth Service to help with internet safety.

Internet safety settings:

Facebook family safety centre – https://www.facebook.com/safety

Information around cyber bullying – http://www.bullying.co.uk/cyberbullying

Google family safety page – http://www.google.co.uk/goodtoknow/familysafety/

Skype Security page – www.skype.com/en/security

North Wales Safeguarding Board

North Wales Safeguarding Children Board

North Wales Safeguarding Adult Board

The Board has the overall responsibility for challenging relevant agencies in the area so that:

There are effective measures in place to PROTECT children
There is effective inter-agency co-operation planning and delivering protection services and in sharing information
Anticipating & Identifying where there may be individuals affected and work with service providers to develop earlier identification and preventative services
Promote effective multi agency support services
Promote inter agency approaches to working with community groups and organisations where there may be populations at risk of harm
Using inter-agency training and dissemination of learning and research to help build a more confident and knowledgeable multi agency workforce

Find more here: Children’s Board

The objectives of a Safeguarding Adults Board are:

To protect adults within its area who have needs for care and support (whether or not a local authority is meeting any of those needs) and are experiencing, or are at risk of, abuse or neglect,
To prevent those adults within its area becoming at risk of abuse or neglect

Find more here: Adults Board