About our safeguarding

We are committed to making sure everyone in our organisation and our local support groups make a positive contribution to the wellbeing of individuals and communities. Our commitment to best practice makes every effort to protect all children, young people and adults at risk from harm, abuse, neglect and/or exploitation.

We want your children to grow, learn, have fun and stay safe and take these responsibilities very seriously. We have procedures which are intended to keep children safe when they are involved in our events, or when they are accessing our services.

How do we do this?

• Check out activities, buildings and venues to make sure they are safe for your children.
• Make sure staff and volunteers are suitable to work with your children.
• Make sure staff and volunteers know what to do if they think your children are being harmed at home or somewhere else.
• Help children and young people to treat each other with respect.
• Give you and your children information to help keep them safe, online and offline.
• Give communication support to children to make sure they have understood information, especially about safety.

Our events

We carry out thorough risk assessments on all our events and activities through the process of a careful examination of what could cause harm to staff and visitors.

The arrangements put in place as a result of the assessments are designed to minimise risk with specific focus on possible risks to deaf children and young people. This includes fire safety, administration of medicines, use of equipment and training for staff and volunteers. We also make sure that insurance is in place for our events.

When choosing external venues for children’s residential events, or activities which are more hazardous, it is a requirement that a copy of that venue’s risk assessment is provided for the organisers. We have a safeguarding policy and procedures which all staff are expected to adhere to.

To create a safe environment for children, young people and staff, the following steps are taken:

• staff and volunteers working with children and young people are Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)/PVG/Access NI checked and references are taken to verify staff suitability
• staff and volunteers are supervised and supported in their work
• we have safeguarding policies and procedures
• staff and volunteers receive training in safeguarding and child protection at a level appropriate to their work
• all staff, volunteers, children and parents are able to raise concerns about poor or dangerous practice. If we are concerned that a child or young person may be at risk, whatever the circumstances, we must share our concerns with an appropriate person or authority. Where possible, we will discuss our concerns with parents/carers first. However, there may be circumstances that do not allow us to do so and at such times we will pass on concerns immediately and directly. 

When other organisations, such as crèche providers, are used to help with events, we make sure that their suitability is checked. We provide communication support for children and young people to make sure they can take part fully and that they have understood safety information.

Staying safe online

• We provide some services for children and young people which involve the use of the internet. We make every effort to keep these services safe and to advise children and young people how they can keep themselves safe online.

What you can do

• Make sure your child knows they can talk to you or another adult if an adult or another young person is doing something which harms them.
• Give us the important information we need (for example about health conditions, allergies or children’s abilities) so that we can take good care of your child at events.
• Make sure your child knows how to keep safe especially online.
• Tell us if there is something you are not happy about.

If you want to know more

Should you wish to see a copy of our safeguarding policies and procedures, or if you have concerns about a child or young person’s safety while involved in our activities, please contact the staff member responsible for organising the project/event or their manager.

If you are unclear about who they are or if you are unhappy with their response please get in touch with our Safeguarding Assurance Manager on [email protected] or refer to our complaints policy.

Are you deaf and a sign language user? To find out more about our policies and position statements, please use our video relay service to contact us.

Other places you can find advice
Department for Education www.education.gov.uk
Child Exploitation and Online Protection ceop.police.uk
NSPCC www.nspcc.org.uk

Safeguarding documents

For Local Groups: A designated persons guide
Safeguarding – National Deaf Children’s Society’s Leaflet