SAFEGUARDING POLICY

Aims
The Company was set up in 1992 as an independent charity in order to facilitate opportunities for schools, youth services, adult education and community groups throughout Cumbria to benefit from working with artists and arts organisations. Since April 2008 the company has become responsible for the management of the Creative Partnership Programme which promotes partnerships between schools and a wide range of creative professionals, such as architects, web designers, chefs etc. The collective term now used by the Company to describe artists and other creative professionals is ‘creative practitioners’. In the schools that are involved in the Creative Partnership Programme are allocated a Creative Agent who is responsible for brokering the partnership between the creative practitioner and the school.

The Company particularly advocates the benefits of creative practitioners working in residence in educational settings because of the unique contribution to inspiration and creativity that they can bring to the learning process.

Purpose
The Company’s role is to provide advice, funding and support to schools, colleges, youth organisations, creative practitioners and other arts organisations on the effective management and delivery of artist in residence projects. This involves the Company in providing a number of services to support the development of good practice and ultimately high quality experience for those involved.

Commitment:
The Company is committed to safeguarding all children and young people that come into contact with their work . We believe that children have an equal right to protection from abuse, regardless of their age, race, religion, ability, gender, language, background or sexual identity and consider the welfare of the child/ young person is paramount.

Definition
The policy defines a child or young person as anyone under the age of 18 (The Children Act 12989, 2004 & Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006) and recognises that there may be additional needs associated with children and young people with disabilities, from minority ethnic backgrounds or who are otherwise excluded from main stream services.

Informed Decisions
We enable all our staff and those who work with us to make informed and confident decisions
regarding safeguarding issues and take all suspicions and allegations of abuse seriously. We expect
everyone (staff, board, partners, agency staff, volunteers and anyone working on behalf of the Company to have read, understood and adhere to this policy and related procedures, except where it has been formally agreed that another appropriate policy provides greater protection for children.

Safeguards
The Company will take every reasonable step to ensure that children and young people are protected where :
-our own staff are directly involved in a project or programme
-we broker the relationship between a school/ young person’s setting and a creative practitioner/ organisation
-we contract a creative practitioner/ organisation to work with a school/ young people’s setting.
-we work in partnership with another organisation or agency.

We will endeavour to safeguard children and young people by
-valuing them, listening and respecting them
-adopting this policy and adhering to our associated procedures and code of conduct for staff
-recruiting all staff, partners and Creative Agents safely by ensuring that all the necessary checks are made
-sharing information about safeguarding and child protection with children, parents, school staff, partners and our staff.
-sharing concerns with agencies who need to know involving children, school staff and parents appropriately
Providing effective management of staff and Creative Agents through supervision, support and training.

Roles and responsibilities:
The designated person within the company for Safeguarding and Child Protection is the Director.
In the Director’s absence the role will be undertaken by the Director of the Creative Partnership Programme.

The role of the Designated Person is to:
-assume overall responsibility for safeguarding and child protection for the Company.
-help the rest of the Company understand the key issues in relation to safeguarding and the cultural / education sectors.
-be a point of contact within the organisation for staff, board, partners, Creative Agents and creative practitioners in relation to safeguarding and child protection.
-be aware of local statutory safeguarding procedures and networks and make contact with the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB)
-make decisions about safeguarding and child protection
-receive and assess information from staff, Creative Agents and creative practitioners who have a child protection concern.
-report the issue to the Safeguarding Officer/ within the school/ organisation where the events were taking place.
-make a formal referral to a statutory child protection agency or the police without delay
-record the concern and action in the child protection log.

It is not the role of the Designated Person or the Company to decide whether abuse has taken place or not. The responsibility of the Designated Person or the Company is to ensure that concerns are shared and appropriate action taken.

.Sources of further information:
i)Section B: Recommended Procedures

ii)Appendices A- F Provide Guidelines for Codes of Conduct and Exemplar Proformas.

iii) Additional references:
• Keeping Arts Safe: Arts Council England ,2003

• Safeguarding Adults: A Guide for Practitioners :
Cumbria Safeguarding Adults Partnership NHS (March 2009)

• First check: A Step –by-Step Guide for Organisations to Safeguard Children (NSPCC, London)
• Stopcheck: a Step-by-Step Guide for Organisations to Safeguard Children (NSPCC, London)
www.artscouncil.org.ukNSPCC Child Protection

Review:
The Company is committed to reviewing this policy and procedures annually, updating the action plan as appropriate.

 Please see attachement for sample petter to parents for photo permissions and for the Creative Practitioner declaration to join the on-line directory.

Attachments