Safeguarding Code of Good Practice

Most church youth work takes place within a group setting however there are times when one to one work with a young person (secondary school age) is necessary. Anyone working in this way on a regular basis must be formally recognised as someone who has the trust of the church to work one to one with young people.

This worker must;

• Maintain a log sheet recording who, when & where workers and young people have met.
• Make notes after each meeting recording the essence of the conversation, advice given or recommendations made and what agreed. All this information should be securely stored and the young person informed they have a right to see any records kept on them.
• Be accountable to a minister, the Children & Family’s worker or a fellow youth worker for these appointments.
• Maintain professional distance and set the boundaries for confidentiality.
• Choose an appropriate venue in a public place in view of another adult eg. a coffee shop.

Parents should give permission for their child to be given transport and know when they are to expect their child home. Two adults must always be present when transporting children, however, there may be times when an event (e.g. youth activity week) cannot provide enough adults to ensure two adults per car in every car. One adult is then exceptionally allowed but only if;

1. All drivers are travelling in a convoy (i.e. same route and in sight of each other).
2. Any lone driver can easily remain in contact with the other leaders.
3. Any lone driver should never be alone with one child unless it is their own child.

There must ALWAYS be two adults in a minibus.

Drivers must be over 21, competent, drive appropriately and have held a full driving licence for at least 2 years. Drivers must ensure that they have adequate insurance cover and that the car is road worthy. No-one who has been banned from driving in the past 3 years or awaiting proceedings likely to lead to driving ban may provide transport.

Electronic communication (eg. mobile phones, email, social networking sites etc.) can be used as a means of communication with children & young people by contracted workers however the following principles need to be followed:

• Parents & carers, and children & young people themselves have the right to decide if a worker is to have email addresses or mobile phone numbers etc.
• Direct electronic communication with primary school age children is inappropriate and should be avoided.
• Electronic communication should be for information giving purposes only.
• Any communication with a young person in need or at a time of crisis must be logged stating when they communicated and who was involved and text file saved if possible.
• Text language should be avoided when communicating by mobile phone so to avoid any ambiguity.
• Workers must not retain images of children & young people on their mobile phones.
• Leaders should be careful when sharing social media with young people. They should consider having a social networking site solely for youth work (for young people and other youth leaders) separate from their own personal site. All communications should be transparent and open to scrutiny. Leaders need to be aware that children & young people could view photos and other communications of other people linked to that site.

No children should be identified as being present without the permission of their parents/guardians. If a signed consent form has not been received including permission to be shown on recordings or livestreams then children should be blurred out or the camera angled so they are not seen.

When children and young people in the care of church organisations there needs to be:

• Parental (or guardian) consent.
• Information about who to contact in the case of emergency.
• Key information that might impact on their wellbeing.

The standard church consent form also details specific areas (eg. taking the child off premises for activities, use of photographs etc). Any activity not listed on this form or any other used must be specifically consented for.

The church takes separate responsibility for the implementation of Health & Safety policies to protect all users of the building. Leaders need to be aware of any Health & Safety risks attached to their activity and may need to complete a risk assessment to identify potential hazards, to assess risk and plan how to control or minimise any risk.