Shine’s Safeguarding Policy Statement

The purpose of this policy is:

To protect the children, young people and adults at risk who receive Shine’s services, from harm.
To provide staff and volunteers, children and their families, young people, and adults at risk with the overarching principles that guide our approach to child protection and safeguarding adults.
This policy applies to anyone working on behalf of Shine, including senior managers and the board of trustees, paid staff, volunteers, sessional workers, agency staff and students.

We believe that:

Children, young people, and adults at risk should never experience abuse of any kind.
Shine has a responsibility to promote the welfare of children, young people, and adults with spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus, to keep them safe and to work in a way that protects them.

We recognise that:

The welfare of children, young people and adults at risk is paramount in all the work we do and in all the decisions we take, all children, young people, and adults at risk, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignments, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation have an equal right to protection from all types of harm or abuse.
Some children and adults at risk are additionally vulnerable because of the impact of their disabilities, the level of dependency, communication needs or other issues.
Working in partnership with our members, their families and other agencies is essential in promoting our members’ welfare.

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

Empowering, valuing, listening to and respecting them.
Appointing a designated safeguarding lead and a lead trustee board member for safeguarding.
Adopting child protection and adult safeguarding best practice through our policies, procedures, and code of conduct for staff and volunteers.
Developing and implementing an effective online safety policy and related procedures.
Providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support, training, and quality assurance measures so that all staff and volunteers know about and follow our policies, procedures, and behaviour codes confidently and completely.
Recruiting and selecting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary checks are made
Recording, storing, and using information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance.
Sharing information about safeguarding and good practice with our members and their families and making sure our members know where to go for help if they have a concern.
Using our adult safeguarding and child protection procedures to share concerns and relevant information with agencies who need to know and involving our members appropriately.
Using our procedures to manage any allegations against staff and volunteers appropriately.
Creating and maintaining an anti-bullying environment and ensuring that we have a policy and procedure to help us deal effectively with any bullying that does arise.
Ensuring that we have effective complaints and whistleblowing measures in place.
Ensuring that we provide a safe physical environment for our members of any age, our staff and volunteers, by applying health and safety measures in accordance with the law and regulatory guidance.
Building a safeguarding culture where staff and volunteers, members and their families, treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing their concerns.

Contact details

Safeguarding Lead

Name: Gill Valentine

Phone Number: 07879 322751

Email: gill.valentine@shinecharity.org.uk

Deputy Safeguarding Lead for England and Wales

Name: Sarah Carrier

Phone Number: 07778 697716

Email: sarah.carrier@shinecharity.org.uk

Safeguarding Champion for Northern Ireland

Name: Marie McGonnell

Phone Number: 07789 616420

Email: marie.mcgonnell@shinecharity.org.uk

Trustee/Senior Lead for Safeguarding

Name: Joanne Williams (Northern Ireland)

Email: joanne.williams@shinecharity.org.uk

Trustee/ Lead for Safeguarding

Name: Jenny Goy

Email: jenny.goy@shinecharity.org.uk

Legal Framework

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of legislation, policy and guidance that seeks to protect children and adults at risk in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

For Adults this includes:

Care Act 2014 (England)
This Act refers to safeguarding vulnerable adults by outlining the legal responsibilities when protecting vulnerable adults. It sets out that local authorities have the primary responsibility and must work in partnership with health and care organisations.

The Act places emphasis on the overall well-being of the vulnerable adult, rather than basic safety and protection. Enshrined in this Act are the key principles:

Empowerment
Prevention
Proportionality
Protection
Partnership
Accountability

The equivalent Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act 2014 has been implemented since April 2016.

The fundamental principles of the Act are:

Voice and control – putting the individual and their needs, at the centre of their care, and giving them a voice in, and control over, reaching the outcomes that help them achieve well-being.
Prevention and early intervention – increasing preventative services within the community to minimise the escalation of critical need.
Well-being – supporting people to achieve their own well-being and measuring the success of care and support.
Co-production – encouraging individuals to become more involved in the design and delivery of services with Safeguarding being an over- arching theme of the Act, with detailed guidance in part 7 ‘Working Together to Safeguard People.’

With Safeguarding being an over-arching theme of the Act, with detailed guidance in part 7 ‘Working Together to Safeguard People’

The Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 was introduced to put in place patient-led, patient- centred health and care structures in Northern Ireland which are responsive to the needs of patients, clients, and carers.

The purpose of the Act is to provide the legislative framework within which health and social care structures in Northern Ireland should operate. It sets out, as transparently as possible, the high-level functions of the various health and social care bodies.

The Act also establishes the parameters within which each health and social care body are permitted to operate and establishes the necessary governance and accountability arrangements which will support the effective delivery of health and social care in Northern Ireland.

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (England and Wales).
The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

The aim of these laws is to make sure unsuitable people do not work with vulnerable adults. People who have a criminal history of abuse and exploitation are placed on a list that is checked when anyone applies for a job with vulnerable adults, which meets the legal criteria.

The vetting and barring system defines the type of work that requires a check of the list, with regulated and controlled workplaces. It aims to prevent future abuses being carried out by someone with convictions of crimes that are abusive.

Health and Social Care Act 2012
The main element of this Act for safeguarding vulnerable adults is Regulation 13. This section of the Act is there to protect adults within the health and social care systems from being abused. There are also provisions that prevent restraints being used incorrectly and removing someone’s liberty improperly.

Mental Capacity Act 2005 (England and Wales)
Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016
Applying to anyone over the age of 16, the key principles of both Acts are:

Presumption of capacity – Until you can determine otherwise, you must assume the adult is able to make their own choices.
Support to make a decision – It is acceptable to offer support to someone to make their own choices, but it should be support and not coercion.
Ability to make unwise decisions – Just because someone is making a poor or unwise decision does not automatically mean they lack mental capacity.
Best interest – When someone has been deemed to not have mental capacity, anyone acting on their behalf must act in their best interests.
Least restrictive – Anyone making choices for someone without mental capacity should always choose the least restrictive, but safe, option.

It is useful to understand that if a person has an impairment of the mind or brain, whether permanent or temporary then capacity is judged by whether they are able to:

Understand the decision they need to make and why they need to make it.
Understand, retain, use, and weigh information relevant to the decision.
Understand the consequences of making or not making this decision and communicate their decision.

Failure on one of these points will determine lack of capacity.

It is also useful to understand that even someone who has capacity and has exercised their choice may still require a safeguarding being raised to protect them. For instance, when a person with capacity has Self-Neglected (hygiene, health, surroundings etc.).

Equality Act 2010

Under the Equality Act, there are nine protected characteristics, namely:

Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion or belief
Sex
Sexual Orientation.

When assessing whether a person is vulnerable, there cannot be any discrimination based around these characteristics – all choices, assessments, and decisions must be consistent.

In Northern Ireland, equality and anti-discrimination law is not consolidated into one single act. Instead, there are numerous acts that apply, all of which are underpinned by The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which states that there should be due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity:

(a) between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status, or sexual orientation.
(b) between men and women generally.
(c) between persons with a disability and persons without.
and
(d) between persons with dependants and persons without.

Human Rights Act 1998

This piece of legislation has a total of 13 articles outlining everyone’s basic rights in law. There are four articles that apply to safeguarding:

Article 2 protects the right to life
Article 3 affords freedom from degrading and inhumane treatment
Article 5 enshrines the right to liberty and security
Article 8 guarantees the right to a private life, family life, and a home life.

A person is able to seek legal recourse or have someone go through the law on their behalf if these rights are violated.

Data Protection Act 2018

Originally, the Data Protection Act (DPA) was introduced in 1998 but it has since been superseded by the 2018 Act that brought into law the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from the EU. It lays out how and when you are allowed to process, or use, data you hold about a person. There are also rules about when you can share data.

With regard to vulnerable people, there may be times that you need to withhold that you have information to be able to protect a person. Similarly, you may have to share information with other agencies so you can seek protection for a vulnerable adult.

The law allows for this if your actions will prevent harm, allow for an effective response, or is in the public interest, among other reasons.

Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (England and Wales) The Public Interest Disclosure (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 (Northern Ireland).

In these laws, workers in both the public and private sector can disclose usually private information to protect the public interest. It is known as “whistleblowing”, and anyone who does this is protected from victimisation and discrimination at their workplace.

This gives people who work with vulnerable adults’ protection to point out where people are not being safeguarded properly. If workers believe a person is not being protected in line with the laws outlined above, they should inform the relevant authorities

The Care Act 2014.

Every area of the UK has its own Safeguarding Adults Board. They are a source of advice, support, and reporting for safeguarding concerns.

When making any decisions or assessments and taking any actions due regard must be given to the main principles of the Care Act 2014:

To empower the adult at risk in their choices, prevent harm from happening where possible, only do what is necessary to protect, yet offer protection when it is needed, work alongside other people and agencies, and be accountable and transparent in your decisions.

For Children this includes:

The Children Act 1989 which provides the legislative framework for child protection in England. Key principles established by the Act include:

the paramount nature of the child’s welfare
the expectations and requirements around duties of care to children.

This is strengthened by the Children Act 2004, which encourages partnerships between agencies and creates more accountability, by:

placing a duty on local authorities to appoint children’s services members who are ultimately accountable for the delivery of services.
placing a duty on local authorities and their partners to co-operate in safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of children and young people.

Both of these acts are amended by the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which received Royal Assent on 27 April 2017. Key provisions include:

the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel was established to review and report on serious child protection cases that are complex or of national importance (Sections 12 to 15).
the previous model of Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCBs) has been replaced by local safeguarding partners who will publish reports on local safeguarding practice reviews (Section 17).
child death review partners are required to review each death of a child normally resident in their area and identify matters that are relevant to public health and safety and children locally (Section 24).
local authorities must appoint personal advisers for care leavers up to the age of 25 (Section 3). Social Work England is created as a regulatory body for the social work profession in England (Section 36).
relationships education will be provided to primary school children and relationships and sex education will be provided (instead of sex education) in secondary schools (Section 34).

NSPCC Helpline 0808 800 5000

This statement should be read alongside Shine’s full safeguarding policy. We are committed to reviewing our policy and good practice every two years.

This policy was last reviewed and updated on 22 June 2023.

Click here for

Shine’s full Safeguarding Adults Policy & Procedure (Policy 85A)

Shine’s full safeguarding Children & Young People Policy & Procedure (Policy 85B)