Safeguarding Policy

Forest Gate Community Garden Safeguarding Policy and Procedures       

 

Forest Gate Community Garden aims to reach out to and engage disadvantaged groups, and in particular young people, in gardening and related skills.

Forest Gate Community Garden believes that all children, young people and vulnerable adults should be able to enjoy the facilities of the garden, events and activities we organise in safety and in a framework that minimises risk of harm to children, young people and vulnerable adults through accident or abuse.

Children under 16 must always be accompanied by a parent/carer.

Aims

The policy aims to:

  • Underpin the standards of our work with children, young people and vulnerable adults.
  • Keep children, young people and vulnerable adults safe from abuse, or any kind of harm or distress as a result of their contact with us.
  • Protect individual staff and volunteers from accusations of misconduct.

Implementation

Our safeguarding policy will be achieved through:

  • Keeping policies and procedural guidelines for this area appropriate, up-to-date and accessible
  • Having clear processes for reporting and addressing any concerns or allegations relating to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults from abuse.
  • Ensuring that our events and activities are appropriate to their audience, well planned, responsibly supervised and within the law.
  • Ensuring that all volunteers are familiar with the code of conduct.

Responsibilities

The Trustees must ensure that staff working on a regular basis are suitably qualified and/or experienced to supervise and deliver the activities they undertake. Paid staff in regular contact with users will be expected to have DBS certification.

The Co-ordinator must ensure that:

  • Staff working on an occasional basis and volunteers are suitably qualified and/or experienced to supervise and deliver the activities they undertake.
  • Any third party individual or organisation involved in delivering activities as part of a garden event has appropriate experience and where relevant holds the appropriate qualifications and/or accreditation and insurance. If they are operating with any degree of autonomy, i.e. not under the close supervision of garden staff or volunteers, they should have safeguarding procedures at least equivalent to ours.

 

Code of Conduct/Responsibilities of staff and volunteers

You should:

  • Set a good example; you are likely to be seen as a role model and should adopt an approach that encourages mutual respect.
  • Always respect an individual’s right to privacy and personal space.
  • Be alert to inappropriate or potentially harmful behaviours within a group
  • Always seek the consent of a child, young person or vulnerable adult if you need to touch them to administer first aid or to help with clothing.
  • Respond sensitively to those anxious or unsure about participation in any activities.
  • Encourage a culture of openness, where anyone experiencing upset feels able to report it.
  • Immediately report any concerns you have about the welfare or safety of any child, young person or vulnerable adult or of inappropriate behaviour of other adults.
  • Ensure other adults attending a group (such as children’s parents) or family event recognise the need for appropriate behaviour around children.
  • Ensure that parents give permission for photographs of their children to be taken and used for publicity purposes

 

You should not:

  • Rely on your good name to protect you from allegations.
  • Be alone with a child/vulnerable person. If a degree of privacy is required then you should aim to remain within sight or earshot of other people.
  • Allow or engage in suggestive remarks, gestures or touching which could be misunderstood or misconstrued.
  • Take photographs without consent from both the individual concerned and any responsible adult or carer.
  • Engage in rough or physical contact unless it is permitted within the rules of a game or activity.
  • Smoke, or be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
  • Swear or use explicit language.
  • Make racist, sexist or homophobic remark

Reporting procedure

The Engagement and Outreach Co-ordinator is our Designated Safeguarding Lead who will advise the Trustees and Steering Group on appropriate procedures and how to implement them and liaise with the Police and Social Services should need arise. She can be contacted on info@fgcommunitygarden.org

Any concerns relating to treatment of children or vulnerable adults at the garden should be addressed to her.  All efforts should be taken to maintain confidentiality for all concerned when an allegation has been made and is being investigated.

The role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead is to:

  • receive information from staff, volunteers, children or parents and carers who have child protection or vulnerable person concerns and record them;
  • assess the information promptly and carefully, clarifying or obtaining more information about the

matter as appropriate;

  • consult initially with a child protection or vulnerable person’s agency such as the local children’s services, or the NSPCC Child Protection Helpline, to test out any doubts or uncertainty about the concerns;
  • make a formal referral to a statutory child protection/vulnerable adults agency or the police.

It is not their role to decide whether a child/vulnerable person has been abused or not.

 

Awareness of safeguarding policy

The Code of Conduct will be given to all new staff and volunteers as art of their induction training. This policy document will be published on the group’s website, and displayed in the storage container.

Updated November 2022

Approved by Trustees November 2022

To be reviewed March 2024