This policy applies to all staff, including senior managers, the board of trustees, paid staff, volunteers and sessional workers, agency staff, students or any other person working on.

The purpose of this policy is:
• To protect children and young people who use/receive Caxton Youth Organisation services. This includes the children of adults who use our services;
• To provide staff and volunteers with the overarching principles that guide our approach
to safeguarding.

Caxton Youth Organisation believes that no child or young person should ever experience abuse of any kind. We have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people and to keep them safe. We are committed to practice in a way that protects them.

I. Legal framework

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of legislation, policy and guidance that seeks to protect children in England. A summary of the key legislation and guidance is available from nspcc.org.uk/child protection.

Supporting documents
This policy statement should be read alongside our organisational policies, procedures, guidance and other related documents:
• role description for the designated safeguarding officer
• dealing with disclosures and concerns about a child or young person
• managing allegations against staff and volunteers
• recording concerns and information sharing
• child protection records retention and storage
• code of conduct for staff and volunteers
• behaviour codes for children and young people
• photography and sharing images guidance
• safer recruitment
• online safety
• anti-bullying
• managing complaints
• whistleblowing
• health and safety
• induction, training, supervision and support
• adult to child supervision ratios
• Risk Register (for trustees and SLT only)
• Handling weapons process
• Lone working procedures

We recognise that:

• The welfare of the child is paramount, as enshrined in the Children Act 1989
• All children, regardless of age, disability, gender, racial heritage, religious belief, sexual orientation or identity, have a right to equal protection from all types of harm or abuse.
• Some children are additionally vulnerable because of the impact of previous.
• Working in partnership with children, young people, their parents, carers and other
  agencies is essential in promoting young people’s welfare.

Roles and Responsibilities

Responsibilities for Board, the CEO, and all of those who work with Caxton Youth Organisation are set out below.

The Board of Trustees

Trustees are responsible for ensuring that everyone is safe from harm, staff, volunteers, young people and the public. In particular they must ensure that:

• They have completed relevant Safeguarding for Trustees training;
• Policies are in place for protecting people in the organisation from harm, investigating serious allegations or cases of abuse, and that these are reviewed regularly;
• Creating a culture where safeguarding is promoted and all colleagues are aware that concerns will be taken seriously.
• Having oversight of Caxton Youth Organisation’s safeguarding risks and how these will be managed.
• Assuring itself that responsibility is taken for putting things right and dealing with incidents responsibly when things go wrong.

The CEO
The CEO is responsible for the following:

• Ensuring the team has relevant training that is regularly refreshed.
• Upholding and implementing the Safeguarding policy;
• Nominating and Appointing Designated Safeguarding Leads;
• The adoption of safe working practices including appropriate recruitment, vetting
  and barring procedures.
• Robust referral, reporting and escalation processes, working with relevant
  organisations across Westminster;
• Effective inter-agency working, including effective information sharing.
• Ensuring that there is a culture of openness and transparency where colleagues are
  empowered to raise concerns.
• Ensuring that there are sufficient resources for safeguarding, this includes financial, people and training resources.

Everyone who works for, or with us, is expected to:

• Adopt approaches that do no avoidable harm to those affected by our work. We recognise that some aspects of our work can affect people’s wellbeing, such as our fitness to practice processes. We take steps to reduce any harm by adopting personcentred approach to all those who engage with us.
• Understand and be familiar with this policy and know how to recognise, respond to, report and record a safeguarding concern or any concern regarding harm to others.
• Listen to and act upon the advice of the advice of the Safeguarding Trustee in responding to safeguarding concerns.
• Ensure that they complete all mandatory safeguarding training.

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

• Valuing them, listening to and respecting them.
• Adopting child protection practices through procedures and a code of conduct for staff and volunteers.
• Developing and implementing an effective online safety policy and related procedures.
• Providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support, training.
• Recruiting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary checks are made.
• Sharing information about child protection and good practice with children, parents, staff and volunteers.
• Sharing concerns with agencies who need to know, and involving parents and children appropriately.
• Treating everyone with respect and ensuring our own behaviour is appropriate at all times.
• Ensuring staff and volunteers are visible to other members of staff when working with young people. If working alone with young people, then staff must follow the ‘lone working’ checklist and processes (Appendix 2)
• Ensuring staff are working in maximum ratios of 1 staff: 4 young people.

II. Definitions of Abuse

Child abuse and neglect is a generic term encompassing all ill treatment of children including serious physical and sexual assaults as well as cases where the standard of care does not adequately support the child’s health or development. Children may be abused or neglected through the infliction of harm, or through the failure to act to prevent harm. Abuse can occur in a family or institutional or community setting. The perpetrator may or may not be known to child. There are many types of abuse including emotional, neglect, peer, physical, financial, sexual, domestic, radicalisation, female genital mutilation, child sex exploitation and online (see appendix 1 for further details on the definitions of abuse).

III. Involving young people in Safeguarding

• Young People should be made aware of their right to be safe from abuse and where they can go for help, this also extends to parents.
• Young people must be given the written code of conduct when they attend and it must be displayed within the clubrooms.
• If possible, young people should be involved in writing up risk assessments for activities they are undertaking.
• Youth work sessions should focus on exploring the issues of safeguarding.
• Staff work to create an anti-bullying environment and ensure that we have a policy and procedure to help us deal effectively with any bullying that does arise.

IV. Safer Recruitment

Staff members and volunteers selected to work at Caxton Youth Organisation will be subject to the following process:

• Interview by two or more people, one of whom has had safer recruitment training
• Two references obtained prior to starting work
• Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check carried out by the Criminal Records Bureau
• Ongoing supervision and review of progress
• Staff trained in unconscious bias training, and we work towards a more inclusive model of recruitment.

V. Responding to Safeguarding Concerns

• Staff and volunteers may become concerned about a person in a number of ways:
• They may disclose they are being abused.
• There may be concerns due to a person’s behaviour or presentation.
• Concerns may be raised about the behaviour of an adult, who may be a member of staff, volunteer, another professional or a member of public.
• A parent, carer, relative or member of the public might share their concerns about a child, young person or vulnerable adult.
• All cases and concerns logged and record with a safeguarding lead
• All those who work for or with Caxton Youth Organisation share the responsibility for safeguarding & protecting children and vulnerable adults but there are individuals within
• Caxton with specific safeguarding responsibilities. In all cases report to your designated safeguarding officer as soon as you can.

VI. The Designated Safeguarding Leads

The Designated Safeguarding Officers are:

Rosemary Swainston: 07873723041 (Maternity Leave)

Esther Norman: 07873723041

Floyd Hall: 07947614072

Eliane Edmond: 07729023369

Paul Furcovici 07395457110

The trustee with responsibility for safeguarding:

Nicola Carlile

The Designated Safeguarding Lead has a clear role description saved in the Safeguarding Folder on the Administration Drive.

During term time a designated safeguarding lead (or a deputy) should always be available (during youth club hours) for staff to discuss any safeguarding concerns. Whilst generally speaking the designated safeguarding lead (or a deputy) would be expected to be available in person, it is important to work with the designated safeguarding leads, to define what “available” means and whether in exceptional circumstances availability via phone is acceptable. The designated safeguarding leads must arrange adequate and appropriate cover arrangements for any out of hours or community activities.

VII. Westminster Local Authority Safeguarding details

If you have concerns about the safety of a child you should get in contact straight away on the number below:

Access to Children’s Services Team (9am to 5pm weekdays) on 020 7641 4000 or outside of these times the Emergency Duty Team on 02076412388.

Please see a link to further details of their procedures:

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/children-and-family-support

If a child is in immediate danger call: 999

The reporting process:

The reporting process If you have a safeguarding concern about a child, or a child makes a disclosure of possible abuse to you –follow Flowchart One. If you have a safeguarding concerns (or allegations) about a member of staff, or equivalent, abusing a child – follow Flowchart Two.

Flowchart One

1. Volunteer, Staff member or Trustee has a safeguarding concern about a child/ young person, or a child/ young person makes a disclosure of possible abuse.

⬇️

2. Inform the Designated Safeguarding Person. In the case of a disclosure make it clear you cannot keep the information confidential.

⬇️

3. If necessary the Designated Safeguarding Person makes contact with local children’s social care for advice.

Flowchart Two

1. Concern/allegation about a volunteer, trustee or member of staff or someone working on Caxton’s behalf abusing a child.

⬇️

2. Inform Designated safeguarding lead unless the allegation is about this person, in which case inform most senior member of staff/trustee not implicated.

⬇️

3. The person to whom this information has been given makes contact with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) for advice and guidance.

Keeping Staff and Volunteers Safe

The Head of Programmes and CEO must ensure we keep staff and volunteers safe by:

• Providing a safe and up-to-date risk assessment that staff and volunteers need to read and understand.
• All staff and volunteers have clear expectations of how to behave and must sign a code of conduct.
• Ensuring staff know how to respond to safeguarding concerns.
• Protecting staff from bullying and harassment in the workplace.
• Ensuring decision-making is discussed. There are examples of decision-making flowcharts included in the appendix.

Safer Partnerships:

• When setting up activity partnerships, youth workers should discuss safeguarding.
• Youth workers should share necessary information about risk assessments.
• Youth workers should ensure young people aren’t left alone with adults that don’t work at Caxton Youth Organisation.
• Before starting the partnership, risks should be assessed and sharing safeguarding policies.
• In contracts, protocols for considering safeguarding procedures should be considered.
• Necessary information should be exchanged when dealing with a safeguarding incident.
• Ensure provision in place if something does go wrong.

Legal issues

Information Sharing & Confidentiality

You can never guarantee confidentiality to a child or young person. Information should always be shared if you think a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, abuse. The protection of children must take precedence over other legal rights. Please be assured that as long as information is shared in an appropriate manner and in good faith, the law will protect you. You should ensure that the information you share is necessary for the purpose for which you are sharing it, is shared only with those individuals who need to have it, is accurate and shared promptly.

For further guidance see:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguardingpractitioners-information-sharing-advice

Serious Incidents (Charity Commission)

It is a requirement of the Charity Commission that all charities inform them of serious incidents that may occur. The Charity Commission defines a serious incident as an adverse event, whether actual or alleged, which results in or risks significant:

• Loss of your charity’s money or assets
• Damage to your charity’s property
• Harm to your charity’s work, beneficiaries or reputation. It is the responsibility of the trustees to report a serious incident.

More details can be found on the Charity Commission website

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-report-a-serious-incident-in-your-charity#what-toreport

Trustees of a charity have a responsibility to:

• Report safeguarding concerns or allegations to statutory agencies, such as your local authority and/ or police.
• Alert funders or commissioners;
• Alert criminal records agencies if a member of staff has been released from their job or role because of behaviour towards beneficiaries.

We are committed to reviewing our policy and good practice annually.

Appendix 1 – Definitions of abuse (NSPCC, 2017)

What is child abuse?

Child abuse happens when a person – adult or child – harms a child. It can be physical, sexual or emotional, but can also involve a lack of love, care and attention. Neglect can be just as damaging to a child as physical or sexual abuse. Children may be abused by:

• family members
• friends
• people working or volunteering in organisational or community settings
• people they know
• or, much less commonly, by strangers.

Children suffering abuse often experience more than 1 type of abuse. The abuse usually happens over a period time, rather than being a single, isolated incident. Increasingly, abuse can happen online.

Physical abuse

What is physical abuse?

Physical abuse happens when a child is deliberately hurt, causing injuries such as cuts, bruises, burns and broken bones. It can involve hitting, kicking, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or suffocating. It’s also physical abuse if a parent or carer makes up or causes the symptoms of illness in children. For example, they may give them medicine they don’t need, making them unwell. This is known as fabricated or induced illness (FII).

Neglect

What is neglect?

Neglect is persistently failing to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs usually resulting in serious damage to their health and development. Neglect may involve a parent’s or carer’s failure to:

• provide adequate food, clothing or shelter
• supervise a child (including leaving them with unsuitable carers) or keep them safe from harm or danger
• make sure the child receives appropriate health and/or dental care
• make sure the child receives a suitable education
• meet the child’s basic emotional needs – parents may ignore their children when they are distressed or even when they are happy or excited. This is known as emotional neglect.

Sexual abuse

What is sexual abuse?

Sexual abuse is forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities. It doesn’t necessarily involve violence and the child may not be aware that what is happening is abuse. Child sexual abuse can involve contact abuse and/or non-contact abuse. Contact abuse happens when the abuser makes physical contact with the child. It includes:

• sexual touching of any part of the body whether the child is wearing clothes or not
• rape or penetration by putting an object or body part inside a child’s mouth, vagina or anus
• forcing or encouraging a child to take part in sexual activity
• making a child take their clothes off, touch someone else’s genitals or masturbate. Non-contact abuse involves non-touching activities.

It can happen online or in person and includes:

• encouraging a child to watch or hear sexual acts
• not taking proper measures to prevent a child being exposed to sexual activities by others
• showing pornography to a child
• making, viewing or distributing child abuse images
• allowing someone else to make, view or distribute child abuse images.

Online sexual abuse includes:

See online safety policy

• persuading or forcing a child to send or post sexually explicit images of themselves, this is sometimes referred to as sexting
• persuading or forcing a child to take part in sexual activities via a webcam or smartphone
• having sexual conversations with a child by text or online
• meeting a child following online sexual grooming with the intent of abusing them.

Abusers may threaten to send sexually explicit images, video or copies of sexual conversations to the young person’s friends and family unless they take part in other sexual activity. Images or videos may continue to be shared long after the abuse has stopped. Abusers will often try to build an emotional connection with a child in order to gain their trust for the purposes of sexual abuse. This is known as grooming.

Child sexual exploitation

What is child sexual exploitation?

Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a type of sexual abuse. Young people in exploitative situations and relationships receive things such as gifts, money, drugs, alcohol, status or affection in exchange for taking part in sexual activities. Young people may be tricked into believing they’re in a loving, consensual relationship. They often trust their abuser and don’t understand that they’re being abused. They may depend on their abuser or be too scared to tell anyone what’s happening. They might be invited to parties and given drugs and alcohol before being sexually exploited. They can also be groomed and exploited online. Some children and young people are trafficked into or within the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation can also happen to young people in gangs (Berelowitz et al, 2013). Child sexual exploitation can involve violent, humiliating and degrading sexual assaults and involve multiple perpetrators. Spotting the signs of child sexual exploitation Sexual exploitation can be very difficult to identify. Warning signs can easily be mistaken for ‘normal’ teenage behaviour. Young people who are being sexually exploited may:

• go missing from home, care or education
• be involved in abusive relationships, appearing intimidated and fearful of certain people or situations
• hang out with groups of older people, or anti-social groups, or with other vulnerable peers
• get involved in gangs, gang fights, gang membership
• have older boyfriends or girlfriends
• spend time at places of concern, such as hotels or known brothels
• not know where they are, because they have been moved around the country
• be involved in petty crime such as shoplifting
• have access to drugs and alcohol
• have new things such as clothes and mobile phones which they can’t or won’t explain
• have unexplained physical injuries.

Harmful sexual behaviour – should we also have a sexual on sexual abuse of a child? As a person under the age of consent.

What is harmful sexual behaviour?

Children and young people who develop harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) harm themselves and others. HSB can include:

• using sexually explicit words and phrases
• inappropriate touching
• using sexual violence or threats
• full penetrative sex with other children or adults.

Sexual behaviour between children is also considered harmful if one of the children is much older – particularly if there is more than 2 years’ difference in age or if one of the children is pre-pubescent and the other is not (Davies, 2012). However, a younger child can abuse an older child, particularly if they have power over them – for example, if the older child is disabled (Rich, 2011).

Spotting the signs of harmful sexual behaviour:

Caxton works with young people to teach about the signs of abuse and safe people to go to for help. We work with expert external organisations to do off best practices.

It’s normal for children to show signs of sexual behaviour at each stage in their development. Children also develop at different rates and some may be slightly more or less advanced than other children in their age group. Behaviours which might be concerning depend on the child’s age and the situation. If you are unsure whether a child’s sexual behaviour is healthy, Brook provide a helpful, easy-to-use traffic light tool. The traffic light system is used to describe healthy (green) sexual behaviours, potentially unhealthy (amber) sexual behaviours and unhealthy (red) sexual behaviours.

Emotional abuse

What is emotional abuse?

Emotional abuse is persistent and, over time, it severely damages a child’s emotional health and development. It involves:

• humiliating, putting down or constantly criticising a child
• shouting at or threatening a child or calling them names
• mocking a child or making them perform degrading acts
• constantly blaming or scapegoating a child for things which are not their fault
• trying to control a child’s life and not recognising their individuality
• not allowing them to have friends or develop socially
• pushing a child too hard or not recognising their limitations
• manipulating a child
• exposing a child to distressing events or interactions such as drug taking, heavy drinking or domestic abuse
• persistently ignoring them
• being cold and emotionally unavailable during interactions with a child
• never saying anything kind, positive or encouraging to a child and failing to praise their achievements and successes.

Domestic abuse

What is domestic abuse?

Domestic abuse is any type of controlling, bullying, threatening or violent behaviour between people who are or were in an intimate relationship. There are many different types of abusive behaviours that can occur within intimate relationships, including emotional, sexual, financial, psychological and physical abuse. Domestic abuse can be underpinned by an on-going pattern of psychologically abusive behaviour (coercive control) that is used by 1 partner to control or intimidate the other partner. In situations of domestic abuse, both males and females can be abused or be abusers.

Domestic abuse can happen in any relationship regardless of age, sexuality, gender identity, race or religious identity. Research by the NSPCC has indicated that many young people experience domestic abuse in their own intimate relationships (Barter, 2009). The UK’s cross-government definition of domestic abuse also covers relationships between young people aged 16 and 17 (Home Office, 2013).

Children’s exposure to domestic abuse between parents and carers is child abuse. Children can be directly involved in incidents of domestic abuse or they may be harmed by seeing or hearing abuse happening. The developmental and behavioural impact of witnessing domestic abuse is similar to experiencing direct abuse. Children in homes where there is domestic abuse are also at risk of other types of abuse or neglect. Spotting the signs of domestic abuse It can be difficult to tell if domestic abuse is happening, because it usually takes place in the family home and abusers can act very differently when other people are around.

Bullying and cyberbullying

What are bullying and cyberbullying?

Bullying is behaviour that hurts someone else. It usually happens over a lengthy period of time and can harm a child both physically and emotionally. Bullying includes:

• verbal abuse, such as name calling
• non-verbal abuse, such as hand signs or glaring
• emotional abuse, such as threatening, intimidating or humiliating someone
• exclusion, such as ignoring or isolating someone
• undermining, by constant criticism or spreading rumours
• controlling or manipulating someone
• racial, sexual or homophobic bullying
• physical assaults, such as hitting and pushing
• making silent, hoax or abusive calls.

Bullying can happen anywhere – at school, at home or online. When bullying happens online it can involve social networks, games and mobile devices. Online bullying can also be known as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying includes:

• sending threatening or abusive text messages
• creating and sharing embarrassing images or videos
• ‘trolling’ – sending menacing or upsetting messages on social networks, chat rooms or online games
• excluding children from online games, activities or friendship groups
• setting up hate sites or groups about a particular child
• encouraging young people to self-harm
• voting for or against someone in an abusive poll
• creating fake accounts, hijacking or stealing online identities to embarrass a young person or cause trouble using their name.

Child Trafficking

What is child trafficking?

Child trafficking is child abuse. It involves recruiting and moving children who are then exploited. Many children are trafficked into the UK from overseas, but children can also be trafficked from one part of the UK to another. Children are trafficked for:

• Child sexual exploitation
• Benefit fraud
• Forced marriage
• Domestic servitude such as cleaning, childcare, cooking
• Forced labour in factories or agriculture
• Criminal exploitation such as cannabis cultivation, pickpocketing, begging, transporting drugs, selling pirated DVDs, and bag theft.

Children who are trafficked experience many forms of abuse and neglect. Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse is often used to control them, and they’re also likely to suffer physical and emotional neglect.

Child trafficking can require a network of organised criminals who recruit, transport, and exploit children and young people. Some people in the network might not be directly involved in trafficking a child but play a part in other ways, such as falsifying documents, bribery, owning or renting premises, or money laundering.

Child trafficking can also be organised by individuals and the children’s own families. Traffickers trick, force, or persuade children to leave their homes. They use grooming techniques to gain the trust of a child, family, or community. Although these are methods used by traffickers, coercion, violence, or threats don’t need to be proven in cases of child trafficking—a child cannot legally consent to their exploitation, so child trafficking only requires evidence of movement and exploitation.

Modern slavery is another term that may be used in relation to child trafficking. Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour, and human trafficking (HM Government, 2014). The Modern Slavery Act passed in 2015 in England and Wales categorises offences of slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking (NCA, 2017).

Female Genital Mutilation

What is female genital mutilation?

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the partial or total removal of external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. It’s also known as female circumcision or cutting. The age at which FGM is carried out varies. It may be carried out when a girl is newborn, during childhood or adolescence, just before marriage, or during pregnancy (Home Office et al, 2016). Religious, social, or cultural reasons are sometimes given for FGM.

However, FGM is child abuse. It’s dangerous and a criminal offence. There are no medical reasons to carry out FGM. It doesn’t enhance fertility, and it doesn’t make childbirth safer. It’s used to control female sexuality and can cause severe and long-lasting damage to physical and emotional health.

Spotting the signs of female genital mutilation

A girl at immediate risk of FGM may not know what’s going to happen, but she might talk about or you may become aware of:

• A long holiday abroad or going ‘home’ to visit family
• A relative or cutter visiting from abroad
• A special occasion or ceremony to ‘become a woman’ or get ready for marriage
• A female relative being cut – a sister, cousin, or an older female relative such as a mother or aunt
• Missing school repeatedly or running away from home.