What is safeguarding?

Safeguarding is a set of practices to help make sure staff and volunteers are suitable to work with children and young people. It is a vital part of creating a safe and positive environment for young people and making a commitment to keep children safe from harm. (NSPCC)

Statement of Purpose

The Guernsey Literary Festival is committed to ensuring safe environments for children, young people and vulnerable adults. This Safeguarding Policy demonstrates the Festival's commitment to:

• Protect children, young people and vulnerable adults who participate in the GLF activities from harm

• Provide staff and volunteers with the overarching principles that guide our approach to child protection and the guidance on procedures they should adopt in the event of a concern or an allegation.

All board members, staff and volunteers of the Festival are expected to understand their responsibilities to safeguard children and vulnerable adults by following this policy and associated procedures.

This policy applies to our directors, paid staff, volunteers, sub-contractors or anyone working on behalf of the Festival.

The Guernsey Literary Festival recognises that:

• All children, young people and vulnerable adults, regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, ethnic origin, sex or sexual orientation have an equal right to protection from all types of abuse or harm

• All children, young people and vulnerable adults have the right to participate in Festival activities in an enjoyable and safe environment

• Safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults is everyone’s responsibility. We all have a shared, legal responsibility to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all adults and young people and will act appropriately to report concerns.

Definitions:

For the purposes of this policy the following terms as defined as follows:

• children are regarded as any persons under the age of 18

• Vulnerable adults are defined as any adult who may be unable to take care of themselves or protect themselves against significant harm or exploitation

• Relevant Staff includes anyone employed by the Festival (who is engaged in the delivery of activities within a school setting), either through a freelance basis or a volunteer, including board members and the steering group.

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

• Appointing a Board Director as a Designated Safeguarding Lead

• Adopting Safeguarding best practice through our policies, procedures and code of conduct for staff, volunteers and sub-contractors

• Providing locally contextualised Safeguarding Training for all relevant staff and the option of accredited Safeguarding Level 1 & 2 training. (ISCP: Islands Safeguarding Children Partnership Level 1 and Level 2 training, renewable every 2 years)

• Recruiting and selecting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary DBS checks are made for relevant staff and that staff subscribe to the update service for annual checks

• Providing an annual Safeguarding and Child Protection training update to all staff and volunteers prior to each Festival.

Safeguarding procedures during all festival events involving children and vulnerable adults:

• All Festival personnel to wear official Festival identity badge, Festival t-shirt + Accredited Volunteer Badge at each session, so that concerns can be reported correctly

• Each member of staff to have the contact details of the Festival’s Designated Safeguarding Lead, plus the relevant Safeguarding Lead at each venue/event

• No Festival personnel are permitted to be alone with a child except in cases of emergency (e.g. first aid is required) or instances where the child would otherwise be in danger.

Prevention Procedures:

The Festival Terms and Conditions state the requirement for children and/or vulnerable adults to be accompanied and supervised throughout the festival by parents/carers or teachers. This is posted on the Festival website, alongside this policy and stated on family event tickets.

It is made clear that the Festival is not responsible for the supervision of children or vulnerable adults during the Festival on all supporting literature featuring events for children or vulnerable adults. The Festival makes it clear that its volunteers cannot accept responsibility for the supervision any child(ren) or vulnerable adults attending events.

Where DBS checks have not been confirmed for visiting authors, schools/libraries will be notified in advance to ensure their own safeguarding procedures are adhered to.

No unauthorised photography, audio or video recording of children or vulnerable adults is allowed. Where parents or carers do not wish photos to be taken at all, then the responsible adult attending should ensure that their child is not included in the official photos. During school events, teaching staff should advise which pupils are not able to appear in photographs.

Procedure for Reporting a Concern:

It is everyone’s responsibility to report safeguarding concerns. This is a legal obligation.

If Guernsey Literary Festival staff believe a child to be in immediate danger, they must ring 999 immediately to report to the Police.

Any other safeguarding concerns should be reported to the appropriate Designated Safeguarding Lead within one day. It is the responsibility of the Designated Safeguarding Lead to ensure the procedures are adhered to.