If you are an organisation based in the United Kingdom, chances are good that the latest changes to safeguarding legislation may have a direct impact on your recruitment plans moving forward.
Navigating the evolving safeguarding landscape can prove challenging for companies whose core competency lies elsewhere, hence this article – a quick guide for company directors and HR managers to check whether they are compliant with the latest safeguarding legislation?
This article covers the entire spectrum of companies from those employing a handful of employees or volunteers, to large corporations employing tens of thousands of personnel. In addition to the impact on recruitment and serving to highlight which job roles require Criminal Records Bureau checks under the new legislation, I will cover the requirements for staff training in both child protection and safeguarding vulnerable adults. Finally I touch on best practice safeguarding recommendations.
So What does Your Organisation Need to Consider?
If your organisation works with any setting that involves children, young people or vulnerable adults, their parents, carers or families, you will need to comply with a variety of government guidance, legislation and best practice recommendations. It is worth highlighting that received perception of what constitutes a vulnerable adult may need refining. For example, any adult undergoing medical treatment becomes a vulnerable adult. In the dental pussy888 kiosk download sector this effectively means that anyone sitting in the dentist’s chair becomes a ‘vulnerable adult’.
What Does Your Organisation Need to do About Safeguarding Children & Young People?
If anyone in your organisation, whether on a voluntary or employed basis, works regularly with children, their carers, parents or families then your organisation does need to comply with Child Safeguarding legislation and Best Practice recommendations and in order to be compliant you should:
• Have a current Child Safeguarding Policy and set of procedures including Rigorous Recruitment procedures.
• Have a Lead and Deputy or Designated Professional and Deputy for Child Safeguarding who are not closely related through living arrangements or marriage.
Worthy of note is that if you are engaged with both children and vulnerable adults the Lead and Deputy can be the same people for both areas.
You should also provide:
• Appropriate Child Safeguarding training for all staff who work with children, their carers and their families.
• Appropriate Leading on Child Safeguarding training for the designated Lead and Deputy or Designated Professional.
• Some, if not all of the staff in your organisation, will need to be checked by the CRB (see later in article for details).
What Does Your Organisation Need to do About Adult Safeguarding?
If anyone in your organisation, whether on a voluntary or employed basis, works regularly with vulnerable adults, their parents, carers or families then your organisation needs to comply with Adult Safeguarding legislation and Best Practice Recommendations (as mentioned previously it’s worth remembering that the definition of a vulnerable adult includes any adult undergoing medical treatment).
