Safeguarding policy

Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. This includes all staff and volunteers within our organisation. It is vital to recognise the role we play as an organisation in helping children, including those who are abused or it is suspected they are being abused, to achieve positive outcomes.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as:
Protecting children from maltreatment; preventing impairment of children’s health or development; ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes. Children include everyone under the age of 18. ‘Children’ therefore means ‘children and young people’ throughout.

This policy applies to all staff, including senior managers and the board of trustees, paid staff, volunteers and sessional workers, agency staff, students or anyone working on behalf of Tropical Isles

Purpose of the policy

To protect children and young people who receive Tropical Isles’s 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;

Tropical Isles believes that a child or young person should never 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 practise in a way that protects them.

Legal framework

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of national law and guidance and local policy and procedures that seeks to protect children, namely:

Children Act 1989
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1991
Data Protection Act 1998
Human Rights Act 1998
Sexual Offences Act 2003
Children Act 2004
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012
Children and Families Act 2014
Special educational needs and disability (SEND) code of practice: 0 to 25 years (2014)
Information sharing: Advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young people, parents and carers; HM Government 2015
Working together to safeguarding children (2015)
London Child Protection Procedures
CHSCB Escalation Policy
Hackney Child Wellbeing Framework
CHSCB Safer recruitment minimum expectations

This policy should be read alongside our policies and procedures on:

Recruitment, induction and training
E-safety
Complaints
Whistleblowing
Code of conduct for staff and volunteers

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 experiences, their level of dependency, communication needs or other issues
Working in partnership with children, young people, their parents, carers and other agencies is essential in promoting young people’s welfare.

Children have said what they need from adults and professionals with a responsibility to
safeguard them:

Vigilance: to have adults notice when things are troubling them;
Understanding and action: to understand what is happening; to be heard and understood; and to have that understanding acted upon;
Stability: to be able to develop an on-going stable relationship of trust with those helping them;
Respect: to be treated with the expectation that they are competent rather than not;
Information and engagement: to be informed about and involved in procedures, decisions, concerns and plans;
Explanation: to be informed of the outcome of assessments and decisions and reasons when their views have not met with a positive response;
Support: to be provided with support in their own right as well as a member of their family;
Advocacy: to be provided with advocacy to assist them in putting forward their views.

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

Valuing them, listening to and respecting them
Appointing a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) for children and young people, a deputy and a lead trustee for safeguarding
Adopting child protection and safeguarding practices through procedures and a code of conduct for staff and volunteers
Developing and implementing an effective e-safety policy and related procedures
Providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support, training and quality assurance measures
Recruiting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary checks are made
Recording and storing information professionally and securely, and sharing information about safeguarding and good practice with children, their families, staff and volunteers via leaflets, posters, one to one discussion
Using our safeguarding procedures to share concerns and relevant information with agencies who need to know, and involving children, young people, parents, families and carers appropriately
Using our procedures to manage any allegations against staff and volunteers appropriately
Creating and maintaining an anti-bullying environment and ensuring that we have a policy and procedure to help us deal effectively with any bullying that does arise
Ensuring that we provide a safe physical environment for our children, young people, staff and volunteers, by applying health and safety measures in accordance with the law and regulatory guidance

Full policy

Tropical Isles Safeguarding Childrens Policy Download