Key Policies: Safeguarding Policy
PEM Friends Safeguarding Policy
Status: Approved
Date: April 2024
Next update: April 2026
Table of contents
PURPOSE OF THIS POLICY
1.0 Purpose
2.0 Scope
3.0 Definitions
3.1 Safeguarding is a term used in the United Kingdom
3.2 Safeguarding children and promoting their welfare includes:
3.3 Safeguarding adults and children includes:
3.4 PEM Friends and its trustees need to consider all possible scenarios
4.0 Policy
4.1 Prevention
4.2 Risk assessment
4.3 Detection
4.4 Escalation and reporting – internally
4.5 Sharing and reporting – externally
4.6 Action
4.7 Whistleblowing
4.8 Review
5.0 Roles and responsibilities
5.1 Safeguarding Lead
5.2 Trustees responsibility
5.3 People and PEM Friends (possible) staffing Development
5.4 Staff, Volunteers, Representatives
5.5 Partners and Associates
6.0 Breaches of the policy
PURPOSE OF THIS POLICY
1.0 Purpose
The purpose of the Safeguarding Policy is to ensure that in all of PEM Friends’ activities that the safety and wellbeing of individuals and groups is considered and appropriately acted upon to protect those individuals or groups and to maintain and protect the trust and reputation of PEM Friends.
2.0 Scope
As a registered charity PEM Friends has a position of trust for people with autoimmune blistering diseases (AIBD) and in society in general. It will, therefore, have interactions with many people including people affected by AIBD. This may include people who are vulnerable due to social, economic or health circumstances. Although the services provided by PEM Friends may be individually tailored, it does not constitute the provision of a healthcare service and does not seek personal information to provide that advice. In this regard PEM Friends trustees do not have a responsibility for medical care but does have a moral and ethical responsibility to help protect people from harm.
PEM Friends will endeavour to provide a robust series of policies, procedures and a supportive, learning environment to create an effective safeguarding culture.
This policy sets out the foundations for effective Safeguarding practice within PEM Friends and throughout all activities. These areas include but are not limited to:
Digital support including Facebook, WhatsApp and email support for people with AIBD and other projects involving digital media.
Research and Policy
Insight and patient involvement
Media; including social media and forums.
Advice and content team (Advisory Group)
Fundraising
Public events and meetings
Volunteers
Regional groups
Any other contact with members of public
This policy is unable to cover every potential situation but is intended to clearly outline the principles of good safeguarding practice within PEM Friends so that every trustee, volunteer or representative is confident and competent to contribute to a safe environment for people they interact with and can take appropriate action when required.
3.0 Definitions
3.1 Safeguarding is a term used in the United Kingdom and Ireland to denote measures to protect the health, well-being and human rights of individuals, which allow people — especially children, young people and vulnerable adults — to live free from abuse, harm and neglect. Safeguarding people - Care Quality Commission (cqc.org.uk) (Page last updated: 16 November 2022)
3.2 Safeguarding children and promoting their welfare includes:
Protecting them from maltreatment or things that are bad for their health or development.
Making sure they grow up in circumstances that allow safe and effective care.
3.3 Safeguarding adults and children includes:
Protecting their rights to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect.
People and organisations working together to prevent the risk of abuse or neglect, and to stop them from happening.
Making sure people’s wellbeing is promoted, taking their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs into account.
Vulnerable people (whether adult or child) can be neglected or abused. Abuse can take the form of:
Physical abuse
Emotional abuse
Psychological abuse
Sexual abuse
Vulnerable people might also be subject to risk of trafficking, exploitation, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, radicalisation.
Online vulnerability may be in the form of cyberbullying, grooming, losing control of personal data (including financial data, pictures, videos), overuse and addiction to digital devices, risk to personal reputation (e.g. by sharing opinions, views and feelings) and accessing inappropriate sites.
3.4 PEM Friends and its trustees need to consider all possible scenarios where vulnerable people might be identified:
Trustees may be in face-to-face contact or in zoom meetings, with someone they believe may be vulnerable.
Trustees may be in telephone contact with someone they believe who may be vulnerable.
Trustees may be in digital contact (WhatsApp, social media messaging, email) with someone they believe may be vulnerable.
Trustees believe that a dependant of a contact (e.g. children of a caller) may be vulnerable.
Trustees witness (either in person or online) someone being made vulnerable.
Trustees believe that the actions of PEM Friends, or representative may put, or is putting an individual or group at risk of vulnerability.
Any individual or group may be considered as vulnerable or in need of safeguarding. This may include trustees, volunteers, associates and partners.
4.0 Policy
The following principles should form constant safeguarding themes through the culture, aims, policies and behaviours of all PEM Friends activities.
4.1 Prevention
All PEM Friends trustees are aware of their safeguarding responsibilities as well as policies and procedures so that they may highlight areas of potential safeguarding risk to mitigate that risk. They have all received and read this policy and procedure.
To have an open and reflective culture that encourages continual learning and appreciation of safeguarding risks throughout the organisation. The protection of vulnerable people from harm is a team effort and of paramount importance.
Policies and procedures will encourage the accurate documentation of safeguarding assessments, concerns, incidents and actions. This will allow audit and learning for the organisation.
Safeguarding policies and procedures will be easily accessible to all trustees and volunteers. Internally they will be available on the shared Google drive site and on our website.
4.2 Risk assessment
Projects and plans should have clear and documented consideration of potential safeguarding issues where there is potential risk. This should be documented and suitable mitigation should be put in place and clear and documented escalation procedures.
All PEM Friends trustees should consider potential safeguarding impact of any role they are providing on behalf of PEM Friends.
4.3 Detection
By reading this policy all trustees and volunteers are aware of potential safeguarding concerns to look for and consider.
All trustees and volunteers are aware of the importance to escalate suspected safeguarding issues urgently and to the appropriate people externally and within PEM Friends.
4.4 Escalation and reporting – internally
All trustees and volunteers should inform any potential safeguarding incident to the Safeguarding Lead. This should also be done in writing where possible so there is a clear audit trail.
4.5 Sharing and reporting – externally
All trustees and volunteers are to use the procedure below if they are concerned about any safeguarding incident.
Supporting people when concerns are raised about abuse or neglect can be very difficult and distressing for everyone involved. Deciding what is the right thing to do can be stressful, particularly if the person you are concerned about is reluctant to accept support. If you are not sure what to do you can always seek advice.
To report a crime:
in an emergency contact the police call 999
if the person is not in immediate danger, contact the police, call 101
4.6 Action
All trustees and volunteers are aware of their responsibilities where safeguarding concerns are identified. This includes sharing the concerns internally and externally as appropriate and creating accurate documentation and filed securely.
4.7 Whistleblowing
All trustees and volunteers should be able to feel comfortable to raise safeguarding concerns about PEM Friends trustees and volunteers. This should be done internally in the first instance but may be appropriate to inform external agencies (e.g. police, local authorities as above in 4.6) should the safeguarding concern be deemed serious or urgent enough.
All trustees should report concerns to whom they feel comfortable to report to, in the first instance the Safeguarding Lead or Chair of Trustees.
4.8 Review
PEM Friends will continue to review its safeguarding policies and procedures on a regular basis and considering specific incidents or perceived risks. New areas of work by PEM Friends, including new types of relationships with individuals or organisations, should prompt a review of all relevant policies and procedures.
PEM Friends will have processes in place to review all safeguarding incidents and concerns raised to see where additional action is required or where policies and procedures need updating.
PEM Friends will seek external safeguarding advice where it is appropriate to do so following a specific incident or concerns, or if there is a specific event or project which carries a significant or new safeguarding risks.
5.0 Roles and responsibilities
5.1 Safeguarding Lead
The current Safeguarding Lead for PEM Friends is Trina Harris (appointed April 2024). She may delegate roles to other members of the team.
The Safeguarding Lead is the Responsible Officer required to implement the Safeguarding Policy, producing specific assessments and reports for the Chair and Trustees as required. She is supported in the implementation of the policy by the trustees.
The Safeguarding Lead is responsible for maintaining and updating this policy considering feedback, events and new activities undertaken by PEM Friends, and for reviewing the policy every two years to ensure it remains relevant for the organisation’s activities and risks.
New safeguarding concerns or incidents should be shared with the Safeguarding Lead at the earliest opportunity. The Safeguarding Lead should maintain a log of all incidents.
Any safeguarding incidents should be shared with the Safeguarding Lead at the earliest opportunity and communicated in writing as soon as practicable. Where this not possible (due to the Safeguarding Lead being absent) or not desired (due to the Safeguarding Lead being potentially implicated) then another member of PEM Friends Trustees should be informed. The Trustee in their absence will escalate to the Chair of Trustees if deemed to be of sufficient gravity.
The Safeguarding Lead will support Trustees to consider safeguarding risks in advance of events and new services. They should also encourage a culture of considering where potential safeguarding issues may have arisen and use these insights to inform the updating of Safeguarding policies and organisational learning.
5.2 Trustees responsibility
The Trustees are ultimately responsible for safeguarding within PEM Friends and as such Trustees are responsible for approving the Safeguarding Policies, with policy scrutiny on a regular basis.
The Chair is responsible for overseeing the performance of the Safeguarding Lead in their implementation of the policy.
The Chair or Trustees may request written or verbal updates at any time should the need arise due to concerns around the implementation of the policy or an incident or to pre-empt a specific event or risk. Incidents are also reported when they occur.
5.3 People and PEM Friends (possible) staffing Development
If PEM Friends were to employ anyone on behalf of the charity, as part of standard employment checks, PEM Friends would only offer employment conditional on receipt of suitable references.
For roles where a potential employee’s primary duties relate to contact with potentially vulnerable adults PEM Friends will undertake a standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
As part of core induction processes any employee would be provided with information relating to safeguarding principles and are required to read this Safeguarding Policy.
PEM Friends only provide basic references for people leaving the organisation, this would cover the role and dates employed within the organisation. If the new employer requested further information about the employee then this would be assessed on a case by case basis.
5.4 Staff, Volunteers, Representatives
As set out above, if PEM Friends were to employ any staff, as part of their induction all staff will be made aware of the Safeguarding Policy and the trustees will check that staff are aware of their responsibilities. The trustee would highlight to the employee the practices and procedures that operate in relation to safeguarding.
As part of the employment process, prospective employees will be asked to disclose any previous criminal convictions or pending investigations.
Where volunteers, representatives or partners acting as agents of PEM Friends or who may, by implication, be associated with the organisation, it is essential that our standards and values are not compromised. In these circumstances the highest level of safeguarding culture and behaviour should be maintained. This will require due diligence processes and sharing of the safeguarding policies.
5.5 Partners and Associates
Where PEM Friends has a contract, relationship or is providing support (including financial) to an individual or organisation a clear understanding of the organisation’s safeguarding values and policies should be shared and, where relevant, included in a contract. Organisations will be directed to the PEM Friends Safeguarding Policy.
6.0 Breaches of the policy
Trustees will be given regular feedback. This feedback will highlight any areas that need addressing including in relation to safeguarding awareness.