Safeguarding
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. We want every HAF club to be a safe and happy place for children, and for parents, carers and families to feel confident that their child is well looked after and that robust safeguarding arrangements are in place.
Local authorities are statutorily responsible for safeguarding in relation to children in need, under statute 17 of the Children Act 1989, and looked after children under statute 20 of the Children Act 1989.
As set out in working together to safeguard children, safeguarding is defined for the purposes of this guidance as:
- protecting children from maltreatment
- preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
- ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
- taking action if you identify children to be at risk of harm
Everyone working on the delivery of the HAF programme should be familiar with the working together to safeguard children guidance.
We offer free safeguarding training through WCC and regularly assess and maintain safeguarding standards. Funding is available to further support safeguarding training.
Volunteers and DBS checking
We know that in some settings, volunteers can play an important role in the delivery of holiday clubs.
Under no circumstances should a volunteer in respect of whom no checks have been obtained be left unsupervised or allowed to work in regulated activity.
For some of the voluntary staff involved in the delivery of the holiday, activities and food programme in holiday clubs, this work will be done regularly and considered to be regulated activity. This means they will be subject to an enhanced DBS check with barred list information.
There may be a very small number of volunteers who do not regularly carry out this role, and so it may not be considered as regulated activity. This means they may not be required to have an enhanced DBS check.
The guidance on regulated activity in relation to children contains definitions of what we mean by regular and regulated activity.
Example
A guest speaker or presenter visits a holiday, activities and food programme club to deliver a talk on nature.
The guest is escorted by staff at the club (who are DBS checked) while on the premises and is not left unsupervised with children at any time. In these circumstances, we would not expect a DBS check to be carried out.
To provide reassurance to parents, families and carers, we strongly recommend that all volunteers who are involved in the delivery of the holiday, activities and food programme in holiday clubs should have an enhanced DBS check (which, where applicable, should include children’s barred list information).
We do not recommend holiday clubs using volunteers that are not DBS checked, but if this occurs, it is the responsibility of the provider to ensure that volunteers are not at any point left alone and unsupervised with children in holiday clubs.
Other workers
All staff who are employed by holiday club providers funded through the holiday, activities and food programme should be subject to an enhanced DBS check with barred list information.
Part 3 of keeping children safe in education sets out a clear process for safe recruitment. We recommend local authorities and holiday cubs providers follow this best practice when recruiting volunteers.