Radio Free Brighton

Radio Free Brighton believes that chil­dren and young people have the right to pro­tec­tion from abuse and neg­lect and that the well being of chil­dren must be the para­mount con­sid­er­a­tion when provid­ing ser­vices. Radio Free Brighton is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that all staff who work with chil­dren and young people, includ­ing vol­un­tary work­ers, are able to provide a safe envir­on­ment where children/young people are safe at all times.

Within the frame­work of the law (Chil­dren Act 1989), Radio Free Brighton staff and volun­teer work­ers are obliged to have an import­ant role in the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren from abuse, namely: phys­ical, sexual, emo­tional and that of neglect.

Radio Free Brighton will ensure that all activ­it­ies provided for children/young people are care­fully planned and that activ­it­ies and ser­vices are appro­pri­ate to the age and needs of the chil­dren and young people participating.

Radio Free Brighton will oper­ate safe recruit­ment pro­ced­ures and all volun­teers and staff will be sub­ject to a care­ful selec­tion and vet­ting pro­cess. Enhanced Crim­inal Records Bur­eau checks will be car­ried out on all people apply­ing to work with chil­dren and no unsu­per­vised access to children/young people will be per­mit­ted until this pro­cess has been completed.

Radio Free Brighton Child Pro­tec­tion Policy and Pro­ced­ures apply to all chil­dren and young people regard­less of gender, eth­ni­city, dis­ab­il­ity, sexu­al­ity or religion.

Chil­dren and young people will be made aware of the policy in ways that are appro­pri­ate to their age, situ­ation or dis­ab­il­ity and Radio Free Brighton will ensure that all staff and volun­teers work­ing with chil­dren have adequate train­ing in Child Pro­tec­tion policies and procedures.

If staff or volun­teers have con­cerns, how­ever minor, of any issue relat­ing to a child that arouses sus­pi­cion, they have a duty to bring those con­cerns to the atten­tion of their imme­di­ate supervisor.

Radio Free Brighton named child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive will be the Pro­ject Man­ager and their con­tact details will be avail­able to all rel­ev­ant staff within the project.

Child Pro­tec­tion Procedures

Under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ent forms of abuse

Phys­ical Abuse

Phys­ical abuse may involve hit­ting, shak­ing, throw­ing, pois­on­ing, burn­ing or scald­ing, drown­ing, suf­foc­at­ing or oth­er­wise caus­ing phys­ical harm to a child. Phys­ical harm may also be caused when a par­ent or carer feigns the symp­toms of, or delib­er­ately causes ill health to a child they are look­ing after. A per­son might do this because they enjoy or need the atten­tion they get through hav­ing a sick child. Phys­ical abuse can also be caused through omis­sion or fail­ure to act to protect.

Emo­tional Abuse

Emo­tional abuse is the per­sist­ent emo­tional ill treat­ment of a child as to cause severe and per­sist­ent adverse effects on the child’s emo­tional devel­op­ment. It may involve mak­ing a child feel or believe that they are worth­less or unloved, inad­equate or val­ued only inso­far as they meet the needs of another person.

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse involves for­cing or enti­cing a child or young per­son to take part in sexual activ­it­ies whether or not the child is aware of, or con­sents to what is hap­pen­ing. The activ­it­ies may involve phys­ical con­tact, includ­ing pen­et­rat­ive acts such as rape, bug­gery or oral sex or non-penetrative acts such as fond­ling. Sexual abuse may also involve non-contact activ­it­ies, such as involving chil­dren in look­ing at, or in the pro­duc­tion of, por­no­graphic mater­ial or watch­ing sexual activ­it­ies, or encour­aging chil­dren to behave in sexu­ally inap­pro­pri­ate ways. Boys and girls can be sexu­ally abused by males and/or females, by adults and by other young people. This includes people from every sec­tion of society.

Neg­lect

Neg­lect is the per­sist­ent fail­ure to meet a child’s basic phys­ical and/or psy­cho­lo­gical needs. It may involve a par­ent or carer fail­ing to provide adequate food, shel­ter and cloth­ing, fail­ing to pro­tect a child from phys­ical harm or danger, or the fail­ure to ensure access to appro­pri­ate med­ical care or treat­ment. It may also include neg­lect of, or unre­spons­ive­ness to, a child’s basic emo­tional needs.

What to look for:

Phys­ical Abuse

Vis­ible signs:

• Injur­ies to any part of the body
• Chil­dren who find it pain­ful to walk, sit down, move their jaws or exhibit other signs of pain
• Injur­ies which are not typ­ical of the bumps and bruises asso­ci­ated with children’s activities
• The reg­u­lar occur­rence of unex­plained injuries
• The child who is fre­quently injured where even appar­ently reas­on­able reas­ons are given

Beha­vi­oural signs:

• Furt­ive or secret­ive behaviour
• Unchar­ac­ter­istic aggres­sion or with­drawn behaviour
• Com­puls­ive eat­ing or sud­den loss of appetite
• The child who sud­denly becomes ill co-ordinated
• The child who finds it dif­fi­cult to stay awake
• The child who is repeatedly absent

What to listen for:

• Con­fused or con­flict­ing explan­a­tions about how injur­ies were sustained
• Eval­u­ate care­fully what is said and prefer­ably doc­u­ment it verbatim
• Con­sider if the explan­a­tion is in keep­ing with the nature and site of the injury

Con­sider:

• What you know about the family?
• Is there a his­tory of known or sus­pec­ted abuse?
• Has the fam­ily been under stress recently?
• Do you have con­cerns about the family?

Emo­tional Abuse

Watch for parent/carer behaviours:

• Poor attach­ment with the child
• Unre­spons­ive or neg­lect­ful beha­viour towards the child’s emo­tional needs
• Per­sist­ent neg­at­ive com­ments about the child
• Inap­pro­pri­ate or incon­sist­ent devel­op­mental expect­a­tions of the child
• Par­ental prob­lems that super­sede the needs of the child
• Dys­func­tional fam­ily rela­tion­ships, includ­ing domestic violence

Watch for child behaviours:

• Signs of low self-esteem, unhap­pi­ness, fear, dis­tress, anxiety
• Atten­tion seek­ing, oppos­ing, with­drawn, insecure
• Fail­ure to thrive/faltering growth, delay in achiev­ing devel­op­mental, cog­nit­ive or edu­ca­tional milestones

Sexual Abuse

There may be no obvi­ous signs of sexual abuse, but the fol­low­ing may be signs that a child is, or has been, sexu­ally abused:

Phys­ical signs:

• Signs of blood or dis­charge on the child’s under clothes
• Awk­ward­ness in walk­ing or sit­ting down
• Tummy pains
• Regres­sion into bed-wetting
• Tired­ness

Beha­vi­oural signs:

• Extreme vari­ations in beha­viour (e.g. anxi­ety or withdrawal)
• Sexu­ally pro­voc­at­ive beha­viour or know­ledge that is incom­pat­ible with the child’s age or understanding
• Draw­ings and/or writ­ing that is sexu­ally expli­cit (this can be an indir­ect disclosure)
• Dir­ect dis­clos­ure; it is import­ant to recog­nise that young chil­dren have neither the exper­i­ence or the under­stand­ing to be able to make up stor­ies about sexual assault.

Neg­lect

Phys­ical signs:

• Abnor­mal growth includ­ing fail­ure to thrive
• Under­weight or obesity
• Recur­rent infection
• Unkempt, dirty appearance
• Smelly
• Inadequate/unwashed clothes
• Hun­ger
• List­less­ness

Beha­vi­oural signs:

• Attach­ment disorders
• Indis­crim­in­ate friendliness
• Poor social relationships
• Poor con­cen­tra­tion
• Devel­op­mental delays
• Low self-esteem

Envir­on­mental signs:

• Insuf­fi­cient food, heat­ing and vent­il­a­tion at home
• Risk from anim­als in the household
• Inap­pro­pri­ate sleep­ing arrange­ments and inad­equate bedding
• Dan­ger­ous or haz­ard­ous environment

How to respond to abuse or sus­pec­ted abuse

If any mem­ber of staff or a volun­teer has con­cerns that a child may be being abused in any form, they must inform their imme­di­ate super­visor imme­di­ately. If the Man­ager (child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive) is unavail­able, the Chair per­son of he Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee should be informed.

If any mem­ber of staff or a volun­teer has a con­cern regard­ing another staff member’s con­duct with a child they must com­mu­nic­ate these con­cerns to their imme­di­ate super­visor or the Man­ager (pro­ject child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive) immediately

If a child/young per­son dis­closes abuse:

DO

• Do treat any alleg­a­tions extremely ser­i­ously and act at all times towards the child/young per­son as if you believe what they are say­ing, irre­spect­ive of their level of devel­op­ment or communication
• Do tell the child/young per­son that they were right to tell you
• Do reas­sure them that they are not to blame
• Do be hon­est about your own pos­i­tion, who you have to tell and why
• Do tell the child/young per­son what you are doing, and when, and keep them up to date with what is happening
• Do take fur­ther action – you may be the only per­son able to pre­vent fur­ther abuse – tell your imme­di­ate super­visor immediately
• Do write down everything said and what action was taken (see guidelines for record­ing) – always state facts and not opinions
• Do seek med­ical atten­tion for the child/young per­son if necessary
• Do inform parents/carers – unless there is sus­pi­cion of their involvement

DON’T

• Don’t make prom­ises you can’t keep
• Don’t inter­rog­ate the child – it is not your job to carry out an invest­ig­a­tion — this is the respons­ib­il­ity of the police and social ser­vices who have exper­i­ence in this.
• Don’t cast doubt on what the child has told you, don’t inter­rupt or change the subject.
• Don’t say any­thing that might make the child feel respons­ible for the abuse
• Don’t do noth­ing – make sure you tell your imme­di­ate super­visor and the project’s nom­in­ated child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive imme­di­ately – they will take the lead in fol­low­ing up your con­cerns and seek­ing fur­ther advice.

Guidelines for mak­ing con­fid­en­tial records of concerns

When a child pro­tec­tion con­cern arises, it is essen­tial that some­body records what is said or seen and what action was taken. These records are extremely sens­it­ive and should be kept in a locked cab­inet or drawer. Access should be lim­ited to only the Pro­ject Man­ager (nom­in­ated child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive) and the Chair per­son of the Man­age­ment Committee.

These records may be shown to the police or social ser­vices and could be used as evid­ence in court, although this is rare. The child/young per­son involved can be shown this doc­u­ment, but dis­cre­tion should be used. If the young per­son is old enough, their per­mis­sion should be sought before show­ing it to their parents/carers.

Con­fid­en­tial records should include:

• Name of child
• Child’s date of birth
• Child’s lan­guage and reli­gion and any known spe­cial needs
• Child’s address
• Name/s of parents/carers
• Phone num­bers of parents/carers and child
• What is said to have happened or what was seen
• When and where it occurred
• Who else, if any­one, was involved and how
• What was said by any­one else who was involved
• Any obvi­ous signs – e.g. bruis­ing or bleed­ing, changed beha­viour etc.
• What the child said about what happened and how they described it
• Who has been told about what and when
• Whether or not the parents/carers know
• Sig­na­ture of the per­son who has made the record and the project’s child pro­tec­tion representative
• Date of the record

Tak­ing Action

If the project’s child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive wishes to seek advice about whether to make a refer­ral, or if they want to make a refer­ral, they should con­tact the Social Ser­vices Duty and Assess­ment Team (DAT)

Brighton & Hove:  01273 296000 or 07699 391462

The Local Author­ity will make a decision about the next course of action within 24 hours fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion with the per­son mak­ing the refer­ral and by liais­ing with other agen­cies as neces­sary. An invest­ig­a­tion may then be ini­ti­ated to determ­ine whether there is ‘reas­on­able cause’ to sus­pect that a child is suf­fer­ing or is at risk of suf­fer­ing sig­ni­fic­ant harm. Social Ser­vices will advise the pro­ject child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ive as soon as they can.

Other use­ful tele­phone numbers:

• Sus­sex Police 0845 60 70 999
• NSPCC 24-Hour Helpline 0800 800 5000
• Child­line 0800 1111
• Par­ent Plus 0808 800 2222

Pro­jects should be aware of the Area Child Pro­tec­tion Com­mit­tees (ACPC) that are respons­ible for mak­ing sure that child pro­tec­tion arrange­ments are oper­at­ing effect­ively in their area and co-ordinating child pro­tec­tion across agencies.

Pro­jects should ensure that links are made with other agen­cies that have a role in identi­fy­ing, report­ing and invest­ig­at­ing cases of sus­pec­ted abuse. These include; Social Ser­vices Depart­ments, Edu­ca­tion Depart­ments, Police, Schools, Health Pro­fes­sion­als, Pro­ba­tion Ser­vices and other Vol­un­tary Agencies.

Staff Train­ing and Supervision

WPCP staff and volun­teers work­ing with children/young people should have basic train­ing and induc­tion to cover basic defin­i­tions of abuse, recog­nising signs of abuse, beha­viour of abusers, how to respond to alleg­a­tions or con­cerns about abuse and what action to take. Child pro­tec­tion rep­res­ent­at­ives should have fur­ther train­ing to ensure they are clear about the agen­cies to con­tact and how to con­tact them if child pro­tec­tion con­cerns arise. They will also have the respons­ib­il­ity to ensure that staff and volun­teers know how to respond where there are con­cerns about a child/young per­son. Where appro­pri­ate, staff and volun­teers will be given train­ing in phys­ical restraint of children/young people in order to pre­vent immin­ent injury to an indi­vidual or them­selves or pre­vent ser­i­ous dam­age to property.

Reg­u­lar staff super­vi­sion, staff team meet­ings and oppor­tun­it­ies to dis­cuss the work will be provided and this should be the mech­an­ism for ensur­ing that the Child Pro­tec­tion Policy and Pro­ced­ures are being imple­men­ted and that staff are able to fully adhere to this policy and procedures.

These meas­ures should ensure that:

• Staff and volun­teers fully under­stand W.P.C.P.’s Child Pro­tec­tion Policy and Pro­ced­ures and how this should be imple­men­ted within their project.
• That they adhere to the code of con­duct for staff and volun­teers work­ing with children/young people
• That they remain vigil­ant and responsive

Code of Beha­viour for staff and volun­teers work­ing with children/young people in WPCP

The fol­low­ing points may be sup­ple­men­ted by ser­vice spe­cific policies and pro­ced­ures that are in place to take account of the par­tic­u­lar needs of the children/young people being worked with in the pro­ject – e.g. beha­viour policies, safe trans­port pro­ced­ures, pro­ced­ures to be fol­lowed if a child is lost or col­lec­ted late and deal­ing with aggress­ive behaviour,.

In gen­eral, staff and volun­teers should observe the following:

• Appro­pri­ate con­duct and rela­tion­ships with children/young people
• Avoid ini­ti­at­ing phys­ical con­duct with children/young people
• Avoid phys­ical expres­sion of emo­tion such as kiss­ing or hugging
• Avoid intrus­ive forms of play (e.g. tick­ling or rough and tumble)
• If phys­ical con­tact is ini­ti­ated by a child or a young per­son, cease it as soon as pos­sible without mak­ing them feel rejected
• Avoid any phys­ical con­tact when alone with a child/young person
• If a child/young per­son per­sists in inap­pro­pri­ate phys­ical con­tact, it must be explained that staff should not kiss or hug people they work with
• If inap­pro­pri­ate phys­ical con­tact from a child/young per­son per­sists, this should be brought to the atten­tion of a senior mem­ber of staff
• It is good prac­tice for all staff to work along­side a col­league where pos­sible as this helps to ensure the safety of children/young people and helps to pro­tect staff and volun­teers against false allegations.

When work­ing with children/young people, Radio Free Brighton staff and volun­teers must not:

• Have any sexual con­tact with children/young people
• Lend or bor­row money or property
• Give or receive sig­ni­fic­ant gifts
• Carry out exclus­ive or secret relationships
• Take ser­vice users into their homes

All Radio Free Brighton staff and volun­teers should strive to develop work­ing rela­tion­ships with col­leagues that are based on mutual respect. All staff are expec­ted to con­trib­ute and take respons­ib­il­ity for cre­at­ing a pos­it­ive work­ing envir­on­ment and for con­duct­ing them­selves in a pro­fes­sional and cour­teous manner.

All staff and volun­teers must be aware that any issues around sus­pec­ted abuse are con­fid­en­tial. Incid­ents must not be dis­cussed with any­one other than those staff and man­agers who are imme­di­ately involved with the investigation.

Use of the Com­plaints Procedure

Staff should ensure that Radio Free Brighton Con­cerns and Com­plaints Pro­ced­ure is explained to ser­vice users, and parents/carers where appro­pri­ate, so that they are able to voice any con­cerns and complaints.

Review

This policy and its asso­ci­ated pro­ced­ures should be reviewed annually