Child safeguarding

[safetygal]

Hi all

I have a random one here, I have been told by a housebuilder that their plan is to look after children so that owners can look around the houses in "peace and quiet" for about an hour - they are designing a safe play area into their marketing suite.

staff are trained in sales not nursery nursing - as a former cub scout leader my inner self was having a meltdown about safeguarding - has anyone come across this before, they are aware that they will need a risk assessment and a policy but I think it will need more than that!

so far
all staff DBS
no one left alone with a child
all staff first aid trained - in paediatric as well (not told them that bit yet!)
what age range are they willing
should they even do this?


SG

[Waterbaby]

Bump

Ahhhmmm - sticky wicket, good luck !!

WB

[stephen1974]

It's not a nursery so they dont need to be nursery nurses.
Child minding laws only come in to effect if you are looking after children for two or more hours.
Why do they need to have paediatric 1st Aid? do the parents have this or do they just dial 999 when there is an emergency.
DBS check? well its £50 so why not.

Easiest thing would be to call ofsted and speak with them.

[Essex]

The risk assessment will guide you in what control measures need to be in place.

personally I think having two adults present is enough. No need for a DBS.

A standard first aid kit will be perfectly fine. It is first aid not a full medical kit with training - people forget this.

[safetygal]

thanks for this, perhaps I was over thinking it

[safetygal]

Bringing this one back - an old one of mine!

so my current employer wants a childrens day in the office, this is to be for 4 hours so unlike my previous one of just an hour - this is more complicated so I have told them the following and have been told that I have over complicated things - details below are from the NSPCC - what are your thoughts? have you run anything like this? Note: the idea is to invite volunteers to look after the children and not the parents (who will be on site)

Please note that we must have the following in place where parents are not taking responsibility for their children

• There must be one adult to every six children
• Unvetted adults AND those new to volunteering must not take children to the toilets (even waiting outside the room) unaccompanied. This means toilet trips must be in the following ratio
o 2 male adults per boy
o 2 female adults per girl
• At least one adult must be first aid trained
• It must be clear who the adults who are volunteering are, this could be in the form of bright teeshirts
• We must have consent for photography

We must also have a child protection plan in place and this includes the following

• Safeguarding policy
• Named person who has overall responsibility for child protection at the event and how to contact them
• Guidance on how we will respond to allegations of abuse during the event
• Our whistleblowing policy
• Information on how to get safeguarding advice and guidance (NSPCC Helpline)

Health and Safety

• make sure appropriate first aid cover is available
• make everyone aware of fire safety procedures
• carry out comprehensive risk assessments in advance

I would suggest that it would be easier to ask parents to take responsibility for their children, in the case that we chose not to – I would recommend that volunteers undertake a basic DBS check.

[witsd]

Where are you getting these children? Are they not just the children of staff?

[Messy]

I recall many years ago volunteering to help my sons cub scout pack on a day out to Madame Tussards and rounders in Regents Park afterwards

It was a fiasco with almost zero H&S or safeguarding. Groups of 4 boys were allocated an adult but we never met to discuss any plans

So the boys ran riot on the train - different carriages. The same in Madame Tussards- blinking chaos. The cub leaders went shopping when we went to park, leaving 100% of responsibility to the volunteers

On the way back to the Tube we all popped into McDonalds. My son and 5 boys wanted to use the loo. Suddenly the cub leaders went all safeguarding conscious and said I couldn't take them alone so would have to wait until 30 burger orders were processed

At one point, one leader said I couldn't take my own son alone!!!! Needless to say, I took the whole lot of them

Safeguarding is definitely important, but IMHO, nowhere near as important than having a system in place to look after the H&S of excitable boys on trains and in Central London

[safetygal]

Where are you getting these children? Are they not just the children of staff?

they are and the likelihood is that parents will be the volunteers but we cannot rule out anyone volunteering and parents choosing to dump and run back to desk

[safetygal]

I recall many years ago volunteering to help my sons cub scout pack on a day out to Madame Tussards and rounders in Regents Park afterwards

It was a fiasco with almost zero H&S or safeguarding. Groups of 4 boys were allocated an adult but we never met to discuss any plans

So the boys ran riot on the train - different carriages. The same in Madame Tussards- blinking chaos. The cub leaders went shopping when we went to park, leaving 100% of responsibility to the volunteers

On the way back to the Tube we all popped into McDonalds. My son and 5 boys wanted to use the loo. Suddenly the cub leaders went all safeguarding conscious and said I couldn't take them alone so would have to wait until 30 burger orders were processed

At one point, one leader said I couldn't take my own son alone!!!! Needless to say, I took the whole lot of them

Safeguarding is definitely important, but IMHO, nowhere near as important than having a system in place to look after the H&S of excitable boys on trains and in Central London

I was a cub scout leader for 20 years - this is dreadful, all our parent helpers were DBS checked - sounds like those leaders needed to get some training

[stephen1974]

Phone up a DBS provider, explain what you are doing and they will tell you if you need a DBS check done or not and if you do whether or not it should be a basic or enhanced.

When i've asked this in regards to leisure facilities i've been asked two things.
1) Is there regular contact with the kids (ie daily / weekly over a period of time) as this is how grooming occurs. It doesnt occur in random one off meetings.
2) Are the parents in the vicinity. ie they've not been left soley in your care. If the parents are near by then you are not child minding. You might be supervising an activity area but if the parents are there you have immediate access to them and they will be making decisions regarding their child.

They would advise that no dbs is necessary but you can still ask for a basic dbs. You would not be allowed to have an enhanced DBS done.

I think where you have volunteers coming in to help you probably should do a DBS as you dont want Jimmy Glitter turning up.


On that grooming thing, consider this. Most lifeguards are not dbs checked as they dont need to be, despite them watching half naked kids all day and walking around changing rooms where kids might be naked. However, swimming teachers are dbs checked (enhanced i think) because they have that constant contact with the kids and start to build relationships with them.

[safetygal]

On that grooming thing, consider this. Most lifeguards are not dbs checked as they dont need to be, despite them watching half naked kids all day and walking around changing rooms where kids might be naked. However, swimming teachers are dbs checked (enhanced i think) because they have that constant contact with the kids and start to build relationships with them.

Thats incredible


on your point of volunteers - they will be our employees and its assumed it will be parents anyway