The Compass Safeguarding Policy

Purpose

Our charitable activities include working with vulnerable people. The purpose of this policy is to protect them and provide stakeholders and the public with the overarching principles that guide our approach in doing so. 

Lead Trustee

A lead trustee has been appointed to provide oversight of safeguarding and to lead on any incident investigation and reporting.

Applicability

This policy applies to anyone working on our behalf, including our trustees and other volunteers.

Partner organisations will be required to have their own safeguarding procedures that must, as a minimum, meet the standards outlined below, and include any additional legal or regulatory requirements specific to their work. These include, but are not limited to other UK regulators, if applicable.

Principles

We believe that:

• Nobody who is involved in our work should ever experience abuse, harm, neglect or exploitation.
• We all have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all of our beneficiaries, staff and volunteers, to keep them safe and to work in a way that protects them.
• We all have a collective responsibility for creating a culture in which our people not only feel safe, but also able to speak up, if they have any concerns.

Types of Abuse

Abuse can take many forms, such as physical, psychological or emotional, financial, sexual or institutional abuse, including neglect and exploitation. Signs that may indicate the different types of abuse are at Appendix 1.

Reporting Concerns

If a crime is in progress, or an individual in immediate danger, call the police, as you would in any other circumstances. 

If you are a service-user, or member of the public, make your concerns known to a member of our team, who will alert our Safeguarding Trustee. 

For members of The Compass, make your concerns known to the Lead Outreach Worker. If you feel unable to do so, speak to the Safeguarding Trustee.

The trustees are mindful of their reporting obligations to the Charity Commission in respect of Serious Incident Reporting and, if applicable, other regulator. They are aware of the Government guidance on handling safeguarding allegations.

Responsibilities

Trustees. This safeguarding policy will be reviewed and approved by the Trustees annually. 

Trustees are aware of and will comply with the Charity Commission guidance on safeguarding and protecting people and also the 10 actions trustee boards need to take to ensure good safeguarding governance. 

A lead trustee has be given responsibility for the oversight of all aspects of safety, including whistleblowing and Health & Safety at Work. This will include:

• Creating a culture of respect, in which everyone feels safe and able to speak up.
• An annual review of safety, with recommendations to the Trustees.
• Receiving regular reports, to ensure this and related policies are being applied consistently.
• Providing oversight of any lapses in safeguarding.
• And ensuring that any issues are properly investigated and dealt with quickly, fairly and sensitively, and any reporting to the Police/statutory authorities is carried out.
• Leading The Compass in way that makes everyone feel safe and able to speak up.
• Ensuring safeguarding risk assessments are carried out and appropriate action taken to minimise these risks, as part of our risk management processes.
• Ensuring that all relevant checks are carried out in recruiting staff and volunteers.
• Planning programmes/activities to take into account potential safeguarding risks, to ensure these are adequately mitigated.
• Ensuring that all appointments that require DBS clearance and safeguarding training are identified, including the level of DBS and any training required.
• Ensuring that a central register is maintained and subject to regular monitoring to ensure that DBS clearances and training are kept up-to-date.
• Ensuring that safeguarding requirements (eg DBS) and responsibilities are reflected in job descriptions, appraisal objectives and personal development plans, as appropriate.
• Listening and engaging, service-users, staff, volunteers and others and involving them as appropriate.
• Responding to any concerns sensitively and acting quickly to address these.
• Ensuring that personal data is stored and managed in a safe way that is compliant with data protection regulations, including valid consent to use any imagery or video.
• Making staff, volunteers and others aware of:
  • Our safeguarding procedures and their specific safeguarding responsibilities on induction, with regular updates/reminders, as necessary.
  • The signs of potential abuse and how to report these.

Everyone. To be aware of our procedures, undertake any necessary training, be aware of the risks and signs of potential abuse and, if you have concerns, to report these immediately (see above).

Online Safety

We will identify and manage online risks by ensuring:

• Volunteers, staff and trustees understand how to keep themselves safe online. We may use high privacy settings and password access to meetings to support this.
• The online services we provide are suitable for our service users. For example, use age restrictions and offer password protection to help keep people safe.
• The services we use and/or provide are safe and in line with our code of conduct.
• We protect people’s personal data and follow data protection legislation.
• We have permission to display any images on our website or social media accounts, including consent from an individual, parent, etc.

Working With Other Organisations

 In working with other organisations, including any grant making, we will comply with Charity Commission guidance by carrying out relevant due diligence and having a written agreement that sets out:

• Our relationship.
• The role of each organisation.
• Monitoring and reporting arrangements.

Version Control - Approval and Review

This policy will be reviewed as part of any safeguarding incident investigation, to test that it has been complied with and to see if any improvements might realistically be made to it.