Safeguarding Leadership Protocol

This protocol is under review, and has not been accepted.

We are currently gathering feedback and editing this protocol, and there may be errors or bad wording. Please only use this protocol with caution, and if other organisations have definitive protocol, use that instead.

Please see #protocols on Slack to discuss this protocol further.

How Safeguarding Leadership is Structured

Within QueerCare (QC) there are two Safeguarding Leads who are aged 18-19 and part of QueerCare Young Folk (QCYF), and two Deputy Safeguarding Leads who are aged 20+. These four people work together to implement the Principles and Protocol for Safeguarding Children and Young People and to ensure that safeguarding is centred in all aspects of QC work. There should also be two reserve Safeguarding Leads and two reserve Deputy Safeguarding Leads. They can be called upon should one of the SLs/DSLs not be able to be involved in a specific situation.

Role of Safeguarding Leads

• Ensure all young people involved in QueerCare Young Folk understand the Safeguarding Principles, Policy and Protocol and how these relate to them and the work they are doing.
• Attend QCYF fortnightly meetings.
• Ensure the system for young people to raise safeguarding concerns is clear, useful and accessible and that young people know who to talk to if they have concerns.
• Oversee the buddying system in QCYF.
• Oversee other systems of support in QCYF and systems of support in QC that young people access and work to keep these up-to-date, useful and accessible.
• Support young people with tasks such as setting boundaries.
• Collect feedback from young people on things that need to change in QCYF and QC in general and feed these back to the Deputy Safeguarding Leads and wider organisation where relevant.
• Support young people who do care and/or advocacy work and who turn 18 whilst working within QC to move from doing care and/or advocacy for young people to doing this for people aged 18+ and then people aged 20+.
• Liaise with adults in QC on behalf of young people.
• Review the Safeguarding Principles, Policy and Protocol every six months (or more regularly if needed), according to the 'Updating the Safeguarding Principles, Policies and Protocols' protocol
• Respond to and deal with safeguarding concerns according to the 'How Safeguarding Leads and Deputy Leads Respond To Safeguarding Concerns' protocol.

Role of Deputy Safeguarding Leads

• Ensure all adults involved in QC understand the Safeguarding Principles, Policy and Protocol and how these relate to them and the work they are doing.
• Take a leading and proactive role in ensuing the Safeguarding Principles, Policy and Protocol are being implemented by people aged 20+
• Liaise with the Safeguarding Leads to feed back comments and concerns from young people on how QC needs to change.
• Ensure the system for adults to raise safeguarding concerns is clear, useful and accessible and that adults know who to talk to if they have concerns about a young person’s welfare.
• Support young people who do care and/or advocacy work and who turn 18 whilst working within QC to move from doing care and/or advocacy for young people to doing this for people aged 18+ and then people aged 20+.
• Carry out background checks on everyone dispatched for care and advocacy work, as outlined in Who Can Work With QueerCare.
• Review the Safeguarding Principles, Policy and Protocol every six months (or more regularly if needed), according to the 'Updating the Safeguarding Principles, Policies and Protocols' protocol.
• Support the Safeguarding Leads to make sure systems of support in QCYF and systems of support in QC that young people access are working.
• Liaise with adults on behalf of young people when asked to do so by the Safeguarding Leads or a young person.
• Respond to and deal with safeguarding concerns, according to the 'How Safeguarding Leads and Deputy Leads Respond To Safeguarding Concerns' protocol.

How Safeguarding Leads and Deputy Safeguarding Leads Communicate

Safeguarding leads and deputy safeguarding leads must have a Signal group which only they are in and which has disappearing messages enabled.

How Safeguarding Leads and Deputy Safeguarding Leads are Selected

Safeguarding Leads and Deputy Safeguarding Leads must rotate every two years, or more regularly.

When a there is a need for new Safeguarding Leads, new Deputy Safeguarding Leads or a new reserve an open call-out should be posted in the #general-discuss channel on Slack. If the call-out is for a Safeguarding Lead, it should also be posted in the #young-folk-general channel. A form (eg. a Cognito Form) should be posted and people who are interested in this role should fill this out. The form should ask about their experience within QC and QCYF and why they are interested in taking on this role. They must also be made aware of the DBS check procedure required for the role, and it must be made clear that records will be disregarded unless they relate to interpersonal abuse/abuse of power.

If the SLs and their reserves (who will be reviewing the submissions) do not feel they know the adults that well then as part of the process they can ask for all applicants for the Deputy Safeguarding Lead role to provide a reference (this can be from QC or from another organisation/workplace). This should be decided by the SLs and their reserves, before putting the call out.

Ideally, at least one of the Safeguarding Leads and one of the Deputy Safeguarding Leads should be someone who experiences transmisogyny. If no one who experiences transmisogyny applies for the roles reserved for people who experience transmisogyny, transmisogyny-exempt people may take it but must ensure they are working to transfeminist principles in everything they do, acknowledging and working against the way safeguarding is weaponised against people who experience transmisogyny.

If there are more than one/two (however many are needed) people interested in taking on this role then a young people panel (made up of the current Safeguarding Leads and their reserves) will review the form submissions in order to choose the person best situated to the task at that time.

Once the new Leads/Deputy Leads have been provisionally selected, the current Leads/Deputy Leads must undertake a DBS check according to the 'DBS Checks protocol'. Records relating to interpersonal abuse or abuse of power must be discussed to determine whether they could take this role without placing young people at risk. Other records must be ignored. The current SLs and DSLs must run a skill share for new SLs/DSLs which will include a discussion about what the role, things they've learn while being in the role, helpful resources, and some example scenarios.

Once a person/people have been chosen for the role, they must then be added to the private Signal chat where they can communicate securely with the other Safeguarding Leads/Deputy Safeguarding Leads.

There should be a hand-over period of two months after new Safeguarding Leads/Deputy Safeguarding Leads are selected to allow for appropriate skill-sharing and support. In this hand-over period the previous Lead(s)/Deputy Leads will remain in the Signal chat and will support new Safeguarding Lead(s)/Deputy Safeguarding Leads with their work but will not take a proactive role in doing this work themselves.