adminIf a business works with children, minors and/or vulnerable adults, strict safeguarding policies must be in place. Every person should live their lives without harm, no matter the age, gender, ethnicity or religion. It’s vital that every vulnerable child and adult is kept safe.
Organisations such as schools, VET educational/training centres, hospitals, care homes and charities will have safeguarding procedures in place. Other types of workplaces must also have a plan in place to ensure all staff are looked after appropriately. For every person to be safe, employees must be trained adequately so they can carry out safeguarding duties as expected.
What is Safeguarding?
The Care Act statutory guidance defines adult safeguarding as:
“Protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect. It is about people and organisations working together to prevent and stop both the risks and experience of abuse or neglect, while at the same time making sure that the adult’s wellbeing is promoted including, where appropriate, having regard to their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs in deciding on any action. This must recognise that adults sometimes have complex interpersonal relationships and may be ambivalent, unclear or unrealistic about their personal circumstances.”
What are the 4 key aspects of safeguarding?
- Protecting minors from abuse and maltreatment.
- preventing harm to minor’s health or development;
- ensuring minors grow up with the provision of safe and effective care;
- taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.
Is this connected with VET Quality Assurance?
VET quality assurance may be understood as the composite measures established to verify that processes and procedures are in place, which, when effective, ensure the quality and quality improvement of VET. In other words, if you achieve a VET quality assurance for a VET training centre it will be easy to achieve/design safeguarding policies on VET training centres.
In many cases mobilities with minors in VET training organisations need to be accompanied with a safeguarding policy.
If you need to get more information on the safeguarding policies during VET mobilities please check our project VET^2.