Safeguarding

 

 

As Baptists we take the protection of children and adults at risk who are part of our churches very seriously. We provide advice and deliver safeguarding training, provided by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, to all our Association Churches.

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Safeguarding is the protection of adults and children from harm, abuse or neglect.

We all have the same rights and expectations to independence, respect, choice, fulfilment of our ambitions, to be heard, included, and to have privacy and confidentiality. These expectations are central to the way in which we interact with each other in our life together.

Safeguarding involves a range of activities aimed at promoting the individual’s fundamental right to be safe. These include making and maintaining safe environments for all, having processes to follow should something go wrong, and support for everyone involved. 

Every church should adopt safeguarding policy statements for children, young people, and adults at risk. Template policies are available on the Baptists Together website. Every church should appoint at least one Designated Person for Safeguarding who leads on safeguarding in their church; one of the deacons/trustees should be the Safeguarding Trustee, who has oversight of the church's safeguarding policies and procedures.

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Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks       An Enhanced level criminal record check is compulsory for anyone working or volunteering with children and/or Adults at Risk. These checks show details of spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings held on police records, plus any additional information held by local police considered relevant to the role in question. Deacons/trustees also need a disclosure at the relevant level as does the church’s Designated Person for Safeguarding.

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Baptists Together use the company Due Diligence Checking (DDC) to undertake these checks for Baptist churches at no cost to the church.  However, there is a cost to the Union for every application started so please do not start an application to DDC unnecessarily.