25/02/2019
Last week I was lucky enough to sneak onto a Safeguarding course for Commissioners run by the Safeguarding team at Gilwell Park. While it’s always nice to visit the home of Scouting (and check up on Chris’ brick in the Promise Path), I wasn’t excepting much – it was actually a surprisingly enlightening day. Among the usual facts and figures I did pick up a few new ideas and one or two items really hit home to make sure we protect everyone in our Scouting family.
One of the key ideas that I had missed (despite having had various editions of the code of practice cards in my pocket for over 10 years) was one key point:
Do make everyone (young people, parents and carers, Young Leaders and other helpers) aware of our safeguarding arrangements and share our Yellow Card – our Code of Behaviour
So, with this in mind, consider yourself aware!
The full code of behaviour can be read here and I’ll attach it to the bottom of this blog as well, but I agree that it is vitally important everyone is aware of how we make sure everyone in Scouting is kept safe.
All our leaders have a personal copy (if you haven’t got a new one folks – dated November 2018 – get one from the drawer in the hall, labelled ‘code of behaviour’!), but this got me thinking about how we let other volunteers, our parents and our young people know. All volunteers (ie parent helpers who assist on the rota) will now be given a ‘welcome card’ to read at the start of every session they volunteer at. This will detail how things work and what to look out for/do about anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or causes concern.
For parents and our young people, the code of behaviour is displayed as big as I could make it, on yellow paper, on the wall in the hall. Please do take a moment to read this – maybe when you’re enjoying our end of meeting coffee & snacks! 😉 There are also a few resources that may be of interest to parents and members:
National Scout guidance for parents
Safe and Sound – how we keep your children safe in Scouting
Stay Safe leaflets for each section
I’ll also be asking the section leaders to run a quick session with the young people on what the code of behaviour means to them and how they can help to keep everyone safe and what to do it they think they aren’t safe. This will be coupled with a review of our behaviour policy, which is now very, very old (but still working!).
I went along to the training with very low expectations, but released that good things do pop up now and then!
See you soon.
Craig
