National Safeguarding Week | Adult Safeguarding

What is National Safeguarding Week?

National Safeguarding Week is an annual event which is organised by the Ann Craft Trust. It is an opportunity for organisations to come together to raise awareness of important safeguarding issues. The aim is to highlight safeguarding key issues, facilitate conversations and to raise awareness of safeguarding best practice. The main theme of this year’s safeguarding week is Creating Safer Cultures. All of the information about National Safeguarding Week has been taken from the Ann Craft Trust website.

What do we mean by Safer Cultures?

Promoting safer cultures is all about how organisations and individuals can take steps to minimise harm occurring in the first instance, whilst also ensuring correct policies and procedures are in place so that safeguarding concerns that are raised, are recognised and responded to effectively.

What do Safe Cultures look like?

Listening – organisations should listen to members and create an environment where people’s concerns are listened to and addressed appropriately (be that service users, participants, volunteers or employees). Individuals should feel confident about how to respond to, report and refer any safeguarding concerns either within their organisation or community
Leading – organisations should ensure they have the correct policies and procedures in place to minimise the risk of harm and to respond effectively should concerns be raised. This could include having a detailed safeguarding policy and ensuring that staff and volunteers receive regular safeguarding training
Learning – it is important that organisations and individuals within them, take the time to learn from safeguarding incidents and reflect on what actions could be altered in the future to facilitate best practice and minimise the risk of harm

Each day of National Safeguarding Week focuses on a different safeguarding theme, please see the sections below which provide a summary of each daily theme along with useful resources:

Monday – Emotional Abuse and Safeguarding Mental Health

Emotional abuse can have a devastating impact on mental as well as physical health. To have safer cultures, we need to prioritise wellbeing, and create a culture where people can speak out, be listened to and respected. Today at an individual level we are focusing on the importance of wellbeing and self-care. At an organisational level, today can be used to explore how organisations can be emotionally aware and promote respectful cultures where people can speak out without fear of reprimand.

Useful resources:

Tuesday – The Power of Language

Language is vital in creating a positive culture and fostering inclusivity. Complex terminology and jargon can isolate individuals and result in people feeling excluded. In contract, using respectful language can widen participation in services, organisations and communities. Today, we want to encourage individuals and organisations to consider the language they use in their practice and how this relates to the people they work with. Is the language used in your setting actively inclusive?

Useful Resources:

Wednesday – Digital Safeguarding

Over the past year an increasing proportion of our lives from work, education to sport and activity has moved online. This is likely to continue to some extent, even as lockdown restrictions ease. Today is about sharing best practice in relation to how to help create safe culture online.

Useful Resources:

Thursday – Adult Grooming

People can experience grooming and exploitation at any age and in a wide range of contexts. Today we want to raise awareness about different types of grooming for instance, predatory marriage, financial scams and radicalisation. We want to facilitate conversations about how to recognise the signs of grooming and how to respond to promote safer cultures.

Useful Resources:

Friday – Creating Safer Organisational Cultures

We want to find out what organisations are doing to create safer cultures. Last year British Wrestling representatives spoke to the Ann Craft Trust about the #SpeakingOut campaign. This campaign was launched in response to allegations of sexual misconduct in British professional wrestling. We want to focus on including voices of people less likely to raise concerns, and promoting reflection and learning in safeguarding practice to promote safer cultures.

Useful Resources:

Saturday & Sunday – Safeguarding and You

Do you know what your role in safeguarding is? Safeguarding is for everyone. It is not just about knowing your role in an employment setting, but also knowing your role as a human being in everyday life to promote safer cultures in the community. We want to highlight that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and everyone needs to play their part to effectively create safer cultures.

Useful Resources: