Safeguarding Policy

The purpose and scope of this policy statement

SL TREE

Aim:

Reduce harm, improve quality of life, and aid recovery from mental health issues.

Objective:

Research, develop, create, and deliver Compassionate Mental Health Talks from Experience, founded on and proclaiming the benefits of truth, reason, encouragement, and empathy.

The purpose of this policy statement is:

• to protect children and young people who receive SL TREE’s services from harm. This includes the children of adults who use our services.

• to provide us, our clients, as well as the children, young people, and their parents (primary caregivers), with the overarching principles that guide our approach to child protection.

Legal framework

This policy has been drawn up based on legislation, policy and guidance that seeks to protect children in Scotland.

We believe that:

children and young people should never experience abuse of any kind.
we have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people, to keep them safe and to practise in a way that protects them.

We recognise that:

the welfare of children is paramount in all the work we do and in all the decisions we take.
working in partnership with children, young people, their parents, carers, and other relevant agencies is essential in promoting young people’s welfare.
all children, regardless of age, sex, race, disability, belief, religion, sexual orientation, or gender reassignment have an equal right to protection from harm or abuse.
some children are additionally vulnerable because of the impact of previous experiences, their level of dependency, communication needs or other issues.
extra safeguards may be needed to keep children who are additionally vulnerable safe from abuse.

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

Generally

sticking to our principles and practice, i.e., being truthful, reasonable, encouraging, empathetic, age appropriate, sensitive to their family values, driven by informed choice, and, non-discriminatory.

valuing, listening to and respecting them,

building a safeguarding culture where we, the parents (primary caregiver), our clients, and the children & young people, treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing concerns with one another,

sharing concerns and relevant information verbally and in writing with the child’s parents (primary caregiver), or our clients, or the local councils Child Protection Team, depending on who is implicated as the source of the abuse. (This would be in cases where a child or young person discloses or mentions something that raises suspicion of past, current, or likely, neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, or sexual exploitation.),

making sure that parents (primary caregiver), our clients, children, and young people, know where to go for help if they have a concern, with local council Child Protection teams, and/or the police as the recommended first contact,

Recording, storing, and using information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance. When providing talks for a client, the information we store would not contain the names of any of the children or young people present, except when it is necessary to put a concern in writing via email. When providing talks to child or young person for a parent, the information we need is the parents name, postcode, email address, and phone number, and the child’s name & age, these would not be shared with anyone except when it is necessary to share a concern with the relevant local Child Protection Team, this would only be necessary if the parent themselves are implicated as the source of abuse, or if the parents response when we raise the concern does not reassure that the appropriate response will be taken.

In clients’ venues

adhering to the health & safety and safeguarding rules of our client’s and their venue, or the owners of public venues we may hire for the purposes of our talks, and informing the client or venue owner of any potential health & safety or safeguarding issues we observe,

never meeting with a child or young person alone, out of sight, or earshot of our clients representative (e.g., teacher) or their parent, (primary caregiver)

Online

keeping our online posts or correspondence consistent with our aims and tone,

disabling social media comments and private correspondence channels,

ensuring our social media and email accounts are accessible to both of us, and no one else,

Password protecting our webinars to maintain children’s privacy and prevent exposure to inappropriate or harmful content by third parties,

Removing users from webinars immediately if they attempt to record the webinar, despite being informed via email, and at the start of the webinar not to do so and reporting them immediately to the police.

Not visually or audibly recording our webinars without the express permission of the parents and the children or young people. In both case we would mute or hide the child’s voice and face before sharing the recording. This would only be done as a way of providing an example of our webinars to potential clients or supporters.

Asking the users not to reveal their location or contact details to others in the webinar.

not engaging in any online or phone correspondence with children or young people, unless a parent requests it (If a child or young person does call or email us via our website contact details, we would refer them back to their parents or an appropriate person or service, such as a teacher, a certified counsellor, GP’s, local council Child Protection Teams, and relevant & trustworthy organisations, we would seek to inform the parent, if we feel we can be a source of encouragement we would seek permission from the parent before engaging in conversation further, unless they are implicating their parent as a source of abuse. As a rule, we do not offer a listening and our email address and phone number is for parents and clients.