Safeguarding at Children on the Edge
As an organisation that works to advance children’s rights, Children on the Edge recognises the need to ensure that safeguarding considerations are underpinning everything that we do and that we maintain an organisational culture which enables this to happen.
Children on the Edge believes that everyone we come into contact with, regardless of age, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic origin has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Children on the Edge will not tolerate any abuse and exploitation by our staff or associated personnel.
Our Safeguarding Policy seeks to enable Children on the Edge staff, volunteers and partner organisations to understand their vital role in supporting children and young people to safely participate, enjoy, achieve and grow. It provides principles to guide staff on what is appropriate and acceptable, and what is not. It is designed to protect all children and community members participating in our programmes, as well as all Children on the Edge UK and partner organisation staff.
The standards of our policy are based on the following principles:
Our Chair of Trustees (recently retired from his role as Director of Children’s Services, East Sussex) is an expert in safeguarding and worked with our CEO and Operations Manager (also safeguarding lead) to ensure that our robust Child Protection Policy was broadened to a full Safeguarding policy suite in 2019. At this time we introduced new policies, such as an external reporting policy, and updated existing policies on areas like whistle-blowing, PSEA and complaints procedures. It also includes a full Code of Conduct as well as policies on anti bullying and harassment, how to report safeguarding concerns and extra procedures for safeguarding in staff recruitment.
We work closely with all our partner organisations to maintain compliance with our Child Protection Policy, to implement global safeguarding standards and to ensure the timely reporting of incidents to both donors and the Charity Commission. We ensure that ongoing training and implementation procedures are in place both in the UK and with all our international partners.
Our global partner organisations are all fully vetted and align with our own values on the dignity and protection of all those who participate in the programmes we support. We review their policies and ensure their codes of conduct, procedures and confidential reporting mechanisms are fit for purpose, along with their commitment to establishing an organisation-wide culture of safeguarding for their staff and the children they support.
Children on the Edge ensures that safe, appropriate, accessible means of reporting safeguarding concerns are made available to the staff and the communities we work with and will also accept complaints from external sources such as members of the public, partners and official bodies. Concerns can be reported confidentially by emailing safeguarding@childrenontheedge.org.
Children on the Edge believes that everyone we come into contact with, regardless of age, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic origin has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Children on the Edge will not tolerate any abuse and exploitation by our staff or associated personnel.
Our Safeguarding Policy seeks to enable Children on the Edge staff, volunteers and partner organisations to understand their vital role in supporting children and young people to safely participate, enjoy, achieve and grow. It provides principles to guide staff on what is appropriate and acceptable, and what is not. It is designed to protect all children and community members participating in our programmes, as well as all Children on the Edge UK and partner organisation staff.
The standards of our policy are based on the following principles:
- All children have equal rights to protection from harm.
- Everybody has a responsibility to support the protection of children.
- Organisations have a duty of care to children with whom they work, are in contact with, or who are affected by their work and operations.
- If organisations work with partners they have a responsibility to help partners meet the minimum requirements on protection.
- All actions on child safeguarding are taken in the best interests of the child, which are paramount.
Our Chair of Trustees (recently retired from his role as Director of Children’s Services, East Sussex) is an expert in safeguarding and worked with our CEO and Operations Manager (also safeguarding lead) to ensure that our robust Child Protection Policy was broadened to a full Safeguarding policy suite in 2019. At this time we introduced new policies, such as an external reporting policy, and updated existing policies on areas like whistle-blowing, PSEA and complaints procedures. It also includes a full Code of Conduct as well as policies on anti bullying and harassment, how to report safeguarding concerns and extra procedures for safeguarding in staff recruitment.
We work closely with all our partner organisations to maintain compliance with our Child Protection Policy, to implement global safeguarding standards and to ensure the timely reporting of incidents to both donors and the Charity Commission. We ensure that ongoing training and implementation procedures are in place both in the UK and with all our international partners.
Our global partner organisations are all fully vetted and align with our own values on the dignity and protection of all those who participate in the programmes we support. We review their policies and ensure their codes of conduct, procedures and confidential reporting mechanisms are fit for purpose, along with their commitment to establishing an organisation-wide culture of safeguarding for their staff and the children they support.
Children on the Edge ensures that safe, appropriate, accessible means of reporting safeguarding concerns are made available to the staff and the communities we work with and will also accept complaints from external sources such as members of the public, partners and official bodies. Concerns can be reported confidentially by emailing safeguarding@childrenontheedge.org.
