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 Wales Safeguarding Procedures provide guidance to practitioners involved in safeguarding on how things should be done. The FAQ link below 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
Welsh Government made an announcement last year 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
Safeguarding & DBS Factsheet: FAQS - Gov UK
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.
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 |
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The Board has the overall responsibility for challenging relevant agencies in the area so that:
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The objectives of a Safeguarding Adults Board are:
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