Safeguarding Policy
Sensing Friends Safeguarding Policy
- Sensing Friends has a designated safeguarding lead(SGL) who has overall responsibility for dealing with the organisations safeguarding referrals. The SGL will be suitably qualified to take overall leadership responsibility in this area. The second safeguarding contact is the Therapeutic Service Coordinator.
Safeguarding Lead: Penny Wright
Second Safeguarding contact: Sara Todd
- All staff are responsible for familiarising themselves with the Sensing Friends safeguarding policy.
- All staff will undertake essential safeguarding training overseen by the Sensing Friends SGL. The training of all staff will be updated regularly.
- All staff will have appropriate, satisfactory, DBS checks ensuring that they meet the necessary current safeguarding legal requirements for staff working with vulnerable individuals.
In an emergency a temporary member of staff can support the SF staff work, if they have a current satisfactory DBS check and can provide evidence of this to the SGL. Any permanent team members will need to be specifically DBS checked for Sensing Friends and have a clearance on this. The SGL and admin lead will organise essential DBS checks for all staff. (Added 14/09/22)
- Sensing Friends staff who have Safeguarding concerns will raise the issues firstly with the SGL and seek their advice. If this person is not available they can contact the second safeguarding contact. In extreme cases where a serious safeguarding threat has been disclosed and the SGL or second safeguarding contact cannot be reached a member of staff must contact the Front Door For Families team themselves (or the relevant Safeguarding point of contact for the area where the young person lives). Front Door For Families covers Brighton & Hove. See below for contact information for East and West Sussex.
Front Door For Families- Brighton & Hove
Telephone 01273 290400 during working hours (9am to 5pm, Monday to Thursday and 9.00am to 4.30pm on Fridays).
Outside of our working hours please contact the Emergency Duty Service on 01273 335 905 or 01273 335 906
Single Point Of Advice (SPoA)- East Sussex
https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/children-families/professional-resources/spoa
Telephone: 01323 464 222 Monday to Thursday 8.30am to 5pm and Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm.
Out of hours, with serious concerns that cannot wait until the next working day, contact our Emergency Duty Service.
Telephone: 01273 335 906 or 01273 335 905 Monday to Thursday 5pm to 8.30am and Fridays, weekends and bank holidays after 4.30pm to 8.30am
Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) – West Sussex
https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/education-children-and-families/keeping-children-safe/request-support-or-raise-a-concern-about-a-child/
Office hours (Monday-Friday, 9.00am-5.00pm)
If you are unsure what support you require or have an urgent safeguarding concern that requires a same day response, phone: 01403 229900.
Out of hours enquiries (weekends and bank holidays)
Contact our Emergency Duty Team on 033 022 26664.
If you experience difficulty contacting this number, phone: 07711 769657 (Does not accept text messages). This will connect you to the duty Social Worker.
- If it is felt that a safeguarding issue is occurring at the current moment, while the disclosure is taking place, staff must alert the police immediately using 999.
- Disclosures related to possible safeguarding concerns from a service user to a member of staff must be handled in a sensitive way, respecting where possible the service users autonomy and confidentiality.* Please see related Sensing Friends Standard Safeguarding Referral Procedures Document.
- In the case of disclosures that do not pose an imminent risk, to the service users or relevant others such as involved family members, it is important that safeguarding concerns are first discussed in supervision, with the service user and relevant others before a Safeguarding referral is made to Front Door For Families, this is important to maintain trust with service users.
- All safeguarding referrals must be documented and where possible disclosed to service users, this is important to maintain trust with service users.
Safeguarding Intervention Form TEMPLATE
- Sensing Friends will use regular external objective consultations, such as supervision, from suitably experienced and qualified professionals in relation to the ongoing social and emotional issues that may arise when working with service users.
Sensing Friends Standard Safeguarding Referral Procedures
- If a Sensing Friends member of staff or volunteer receives a disclosure from a service user that raises safeguarding concerns it is important that where possible this is discussed in a sympathetic way, in more detail with the service user. The aim in doing this is firstly to highlight to the service user that the member of staff or volunteer has recognised the disclosure as raising a safeguarding issue. Secondly further discussion will enable the member of staff to gather further important information that may need to be passed onto the Front Door For Families team.
- With general safeguarding concerns, after consulting the SGL and seeking their advice, the member of staff will speak to the service user and inform them that they are going to make a referral to the Front Door For Families team. This needs to be done sensitively after supervision has been received in relation to discussing this with the service user.
*Where disclosure about the pending Front Door For Families referral might cause more risk in relation to the safeguarding issue it might be advised by the supervisor or SGL that the Front Door For Families referral needs to happen before discussing it with the service user. These types of referrals will only happen if it’s deemed that vulnerable individuals may be at risk of more harm if the disclosure of the pending Front Door For Families referral was disclosed to the service user.
- After carrying out the above steps the member of staff or volunteer will contact the Front Door For Families team and pass on the information to the team.
- After the referral is made the member of staff or volunteer must record the incident in the Sensing Friends incident book which is then stored confidentially on our Bacpac database.
Safeguarding Intervention Form TEMPLATE
- When the service user is next contacted or spoken to, the member of staff or volunteer needs to inform the service user that the referral has been made and that someone from the Front Door For Families team will be contacting them if relevant.
- Any further disclosures relating to the safeguarding issue need to be discussed in supervision and/ or with SGL. Further disclosures may also need to be reported to the Front Door For Families team if deemed necessary after discussing in supervision or with the SGL. Further disclosures also need to be recorded in the incident book and stored on Bacpac, as they may be relevant and needed by the Front Door For Families team.(Added 14/09/22)
- The service user will need support and reassurance in relation to the referral and it is important that the member of staff or volunteer facilitates this by talking it through individually with the service user. The staff member or volunteer will be supported to do this by the SGL and/or supervisor.
This Policy was reviewed on
Date: 01/06/23
Reviewed by Organisational Lead Penny Wright
Signed by (Chairperson)
This Policy will be reviewed again on
Date 01/06/24
Updated 29.03.24 – Casey Crossland