Why?

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

 

Generally

• sticking to What we believe, our principles and practice, i.e., being truthful, reasonable, encouraging, empathetic, age appropriate, sensitive to their family values, driven by informed choice, and, non-discriminatory.

• valuing, listening to and respecting them,

• building a safeguarding culture where we, the parents, carers, children, young people and vulnerable adults treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing concerns with one another,

• sharing concerns and relevant information verbally and in writing with the parents and carers ,or the local councils Child Protection Team, depending on who is implicated as the source of the abuse. (This would be in cases where a child or young person discloses or mentions something that raises suspicion of past, current, or likely, neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, or sexual exploitation.),

• making sure that parents, carers children, young people, and vulnerable adults know where to go for help if they have a concern, with local council Child and Vulnerable Adult Protection teams, and/or the police as the recommended first contact,

• Recording, storing, and using information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance. When people attend we do not store their information except when it is necessary to put a concern in writing via email to a parent, carer, or Local Child or Vulnerable Adult Protection Team or the police. 

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In venues

• adhering to the health & safety and safeguarding rules of the venue, and informing the venue owner of any potential health & safety or safeguarding issues we observe,

• never meeting with a child, young person, or vulnerable adult alone, in private, and out of sight of a parent, carer, or responsible adult.

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Online

• Keeping our online posts or correspondence consistent with our aims and tone,

• Moderating social media comments and private correspondence channels.

• Ensuring our social media and email accounts are accessible to more than one person in the church

• Discouraging online meetings with children, young people, and vulnerable adults online, and never meeting if a parent, carer, or responsible adult is not within view of their screen. 

• Password protecting any online meetings to maintain privacy and prevent exposure to inappropriate or harmful content by third parties,

• Removing users from any meetings online immediately if they attempt to record, despite being informed via email, and at the start of the meeting not to do so and reporting them immediately to the police.

• Not visually or audibly recording our meetings without the express permission of the parents and carers of the children, young people, and their parents or carers. This would only be done as a way of providing access to a meeting for someone unable to attend, which is unlikely.

• Instructing users not to reveal their location or contact details to others.

• Not engaging in any online or phone correspondence with children, young people, and vulnerable adults unless a parent or carer requests it.

• If a child, young person, or vulnerable adult does contact us with an issue we would keep our responses appropriate, and would refer them back to their parent, carer or an appropriate person or service, such as a teacher, a certified counsellor, GP’s, local council Child Protection Teams, and relevant & trustworthy organisations, we would seek to inform the parent, if we feel we can be a source of encouragement we would seek permission from the parent before engaging in conversation further, unless they are implicating their parent as a source of abuse. If they have disclosed abuse we will immediately inform their Local Child or Vulnerable Adult Protection Team and/or police, we will have told them this the moment we feel they are about to disclose abuse.