Durham Community Action provides information and training on safeguarding to voluntary and community groups including community buildings:
We are delighted to be part of a new partnership between local infrastruture organisations that has been formed to help charities across the region to protect vulnerable people and will allow us to offer greater support around safeguarding to groups across County Durham.
Safer Culture North East, a partnership between Voluntary Organisations' Network North East (VONNE), Connected Voice, Northumberland CVA, Catalyst Stockton on Tees and ourselves, will champion safeguarding and help charities across the region to embed best practice.
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Funded jointly by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and The National Lottery Community Fund
Read more here
As thousands of people volunteer to help their communities, organisations move to deliver their services online quickly, and trustees and leaders of charities are faced wirh challenges that just a few weeks ago would have been unthinkable, safeguarding needs to remain at the heart of our collective response.
Durham Community Action, as a partner in the Safer Culture North East project, have been working to adapt our project to meet the specific demands of the current situation; thanks go to The Community Fund and DCMS for allowing flexibility in the project.
We have created with our partners some easy to read factsheets for the sector, designed as brief introductions to the subject matter with links showing where to get further information for people and organisations who are new to safeguarding and having to respond quickly whilst facing enormous challenges.
These factsheets are aimed at volunteers, trustees, community groups and those employees and volunteers new to delivering services online. The factsheets are available here
The Home Office has also published a guide: Safeguarding is Everyone's Business which sets out how to keep people safe from harm and abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keep Safe have produced a range of easy read posters that are free to print or share online; these include a face covering exemption card, new rules about wearing face masks for England, support bubbles, shielding updates, symptoms and testing. Posters can be accessed here
Further guidance on how to handle an allegation of abuse or harm perpetrated by a person in your charity is available here
As a network member of ACRE (Action With Communities in Rural England), we will be working as part of their National Lottery Community Fund Safeguarding project to promote good safeguarding practice to village and community halls to make sure that the voluntary management committees that run them have the knowledge and confidence to provide a safe environment for all.
Read more here
If you have any specific safeguarding enquiries around developing, updating a policy or training for your organisation, please contact us by email
This partnership provides safeguarding arrangements under which safeguarding partners and relevant agencies work together to coordinate their safeguarding services and identify and respond to the needs of children in County Durham. For full details click here
Their Safeguarding Referral form has recently been updated, access it here
This partnership is a range of public authorities who share a duty to keep adults in County Durham safe from abuse, harm and neglect. They aim to encourage people to report abuse, protect people who experience abuse, prevent abuse from happening and deal effectively with perpetrators. For full details click here
They have made two documents available to support staff and volunteers undertaking online or in-house training: Safeguarding Adults in Co. Durham to support Level 1 online learning here and Safeguarding Adults managing concerns and making S42 enquiries resources here
There are a wide range of resources available from NCVO and the UK Government including checklists and frameworks, and guidance on handling safeguarding allegations in a charity.
You can download a copy of our safeguarding policy here
RT @DurhamCouncil: As children in #CountyDurham begin their half-term break, a new scheme has been launched to support families who rely on…
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