Bettering Youth provides academic support and emotional wellbeing coaching to children from KS1 - A Levels. The services provided may take place 1-1 or in a small group setting both online and in person. As a company that works with children and young people, we are dedicated to the safety and wellbeing of each one of our pupils and community members. 

This safeguarding and child protection policy has been written in alignment with the safeguarding policy and child protection procedures. 

It is our promise to ensure that each person with whom we connect with is safe and protected regardless of the service being delivered via:

- our online sessions; 

- in-person workshops; 

- online workshops; 

- webinars; 

- in school sessions; 

- and online communication;

 

Each Bettering Youth employee, self-employed contractor, and volunteer has read and understands the Company’s policies and procedures. We all accept the responsibility to keep children safe and relate concerns following our company’s safeguarding protocols.

 

Bettering Youth believes that everyone has a responsibility to actively uphold the safety and welfare of children and young people. This is upheld without discrimination and regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. 

 

As a company, we take ownership and responsibility for becoming educated on how we can keep children safe from bias, racism, and discrimination. Our employees, self-employed contractors, and volunteers will engage in a continuous personal development approach to ensure that the unconscious bias, adultification, or ill-informed beliefs of certain groups of people, do not limit our ability to uphold child protection and safety. We will work to continuously improve our understanding of the different cultures within our community and look to strengthen our ability to communicate effectively to increase understanding.

We further acknowledge and accept our duty of care in keeping children and young people safe while they engage with our services online. As such, we have designed a clear procedure of how to handle any incidents to ensure that we can report, investigate, and deal with any such incidents by child or adult. 

In conjunction with the Department of Education and the Children Act of 2004, Bettering Youth accepts the statutory duty to cooperate with safeguarding authorities and promote the welfare of children. This is extended to our responsibility to report ‘known cases’ of female genital mutilation (FGM) in under 18s to the police (Home Office, 2016).

 

How we will meet the commitment to keeping children and young people safe:

• We have appointed a safeguarding lead, Sarahlynn Hodder sarahlynnhodder@betteringyouth.com 07497 260222
• We will listen to the students’ needs and provide them with respect
• We treat every child and young person with kindness and respect regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation
• Where applicable, we learn about the cultures and customs of the families within our community in order to develop mutual understanding and respect. 
• We are a safe place for children and young people to express themselves. 
• We will always keep a detailed log of safeguarding and child protection concerns and report them immediately
• We hold our safeguarding and child protection documents in our staff shared drive and hold a quarterly review of the policy
• Personal information regarding children and families are stored securely for the appropriate amount of time in relation to the service received 
• Uphold all those connected with Bettering Youth to conduct themselves in a way that supports the company’s ethos both beyond work and online.
• Our staff, educators, and volunteers actively develop cultural competence by way of understanding bias, racism, and descrimination and how it can impact on our reporting of child safety
• Each family and young person is informed of our safeguarding procedures. 
• We make sharing about our feelings a normal aspect of our relationship to build a community culture of trust and honesty.

Online Protection of Children and Young People:

Bettering Youth’s core services are accessible to children online. In order to create a safe environment for children and young people, we will ensure that:

 

• Educators host their sessions in a private, quiet space 
• Headphones are worn if the tutor/educator is not alone in the room 
• Screens are never visible by anyone except the educator who is providing the session
• Ensure that the environment visible does not include any vulgar imagery, inappropriate images or words and doesn’t promote a cultural, political, or religious view.
• A private and secure Zoom link is used for each session/ child
• Recording of children is never shared on Social Media or used without the prior, written consent of the parent or carer. 
• No staff shall engage with a child or young person via social media, email, or text; whereby this is necessary to pass course material or resources, the parent or carer must always be included in the communication
• Ensure that if no parent/carer is present at the time of the session, the child feels comfortable to continue with the session. If not, they have the power to cancel the session.

 

Selection of Educators and Training

Bettering Youth prides itself in creating a learning environment that is safe and inclusive.

As such, the selection process is rigorous and focused on providing families an educator whom they can trust and feel comfortable with.

Our leadership team connects with educators who display our company’s ethos of blending learning with an awareness and understanding of how feelings and mental health can impact success. Through the networking process, we learn more about others within the field who are actively supporting children’s academic and emotional wellbeing journey and invite them to apply to our selection process. Our selection process adheres to an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory framework:

• We recruit diverse staff
• We promote diversity and inclusion without our community and our teams,
• We have a zero-tolerance approach to racism
• We have on-going training on being an ally and developing cultural competence
• We provide 3rd party training suggestions for safeguarding and child protection

Our selection process adheres to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 and requires all staff, tutors and volunteers to provide an enhanced DBS and barred lists check, which must be no more than 2 years old. 

As we are also a Corporate Member of The Tutors Association, all of our educators will provide a detailed resume, 2 references and participate in an interview. 

We ensure that awareness of our safeguarding policy and child protection procedures are upheld by:

 

• Providing a Bettering Youth company Safeguarding Policy and Child Protections Procedures on a private google drive for all tutors to see + sign.
• Having a termly catch up on policies
• Providing the ability to meet with Safeguarding lead to discuss and ask questions at any time
• Yearly team meetings to review safeguarding procedures, if they have changed. 
• Monitoring of the working practices of the staff and tutors to ensure that everyone is actively keeping children safe each and every interaction
• Mandatory training at the appropriate level to the role and responsibilities held 

Sharing Information

We respect our community’s privacy and take this seriously. 

Our staff, tutors, and volunteers work under the strictest confidence and take the confidentiality and privacy of our families’ lives very seriously. This is how we’ve been able to work with a wide range of families who need a discreet approach. 

While we won’t, under normal circumstances, make your information accessible, we will cooperate with local authorities should there be concerns of a child’s wellbeing and safety (Article 8, Human Rights Act, 1998). This means that respect and confidentiality of a families’ private life is not obsolete if a child is suspected to be in danger.

BY will ensure that our staff, tutors and volunteers know how to share special category data, in line with the Data Protection Act (2018), which states that they are allowed to share information without consent in order to ‘safeguard individuals at risk’.

It is through our commitment to being diligent in safeguarding, that we are able to uphold the family values of respect and trust.

Quality assurance and review

We strive for excellence and review our policies and procedures regularly. 

Keeping detailed notes of concerns is paramount to our ability to cooperate with the relevant authorities and help keep children and young people safe. 

Legislation referred to:

• Children Act 1989
• Human Rights Act 1998
• United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1991
• Sexual Offences Act 2003
• Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003
• Children Act 2004
• Safeguarding vulnerable Groups Act 2006
• The Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007
• The Equality Act 2010
• Children and Families Act 2014
• Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014
• Modern Slavery Act 2015
• Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015
• Children and Social Work Act 2017
• Data Protection Act 2018
• Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019
• Domestic Abuse Act 2021
• Children’s Code (issued under S125 DPA 2018, effective Oct 2021)