Children’s and Youth Groups
Childrens and youth provision at Agape.
Youth club Friday at St Davids 5-7pm (sept 2013)
For more information on any of the activities at Agape please contact us through this website.
For your information…
We thought it would be helpful for you as parents of Sparx and other youth group children to know a bit of the official bits behind running the clubs. Below I have attached the child protection policy that all our volunteers have read and agreed to abide by when attending the groups. All of our volunteers are, or are in the process of being CRB checked – this means that a background check has been run on them, ensuring that your children are safe in the care of all our volunteers.
The safety and care of your children is of great importance, and we want to make sure that we can work together effectively to ensure that your child/ren are safe and happy, especially when they are in our care.
If you have any concerns or questions for us, please do not hesitate to contact us via the website, or approach one of us after the club.
Thank you for your cooperation and support through these clubs. We really appreciate you and your children!
Bex and the rest of the Agape Youth and Childrens teams!
Agape’s Child Protection Policy
Good practice guidelines:
Leaders should not:
- Engage in rough, physical and sexually provocative games including horseplay
- Allow or engage in inappropriate touching of any form
- Allow young people or other staff and volunteers to use inappropriate language
- Make sexually suggestive comments about or to a young person at any time ever in fun
- Deter young people from making allegations through fear of not being believed
- Do things of a personal nature for the young people that they can do themselves
- Jump to conclusions about others without checking facts
- Show favouritism to any individuals
- Rely on your own good name to protect you
- Believe ‘it could never happen to me
Leaders should always:
- Ensure that another leader or adult volunteer is present at every activity, preferable a male and a female leader
- Treat everyone with respect
- Respect a young persons right to personal privacy
- Take any allegations a young person makes seriously, ensuring that the appropriate people are alerted and that the incident is recorded
- Provide access for young people to talk to others about any concerns they may have
- Remember that someone might misinterpret your actions, no matter how well intended
- Recognise that special caution is required when dealing with bullying, bereavement or allegations of abuse
Procedures if abuse is disclosed or discovered
- Make sure the young person is aware that you may not be able tokeep it a secret – if abuse is happening you cannot promise that. Make then aware that it will only be shared with the appropriate persons
- Listen carefully to the young person/child, rather that directly questioning him/her
- Accept what the young person/child says – children/young people will rarely tell lies about being abused
- Take the abuse seriously – no incident of abuse is ever insignificant
- Reassure the young person/child who has spoken to you, that they have done the right thing in bringing it to your attention
- Write down exactly what was said, including any inappropriate language that might have been used within half an hour of your conversation while it is still fresh in your mind, making note of the timing, setting and people present
- Explain to the young person/child what actions you are going to take – that the information must be shared
- Report what you have heard, seen or suspect to the appointed person – Firstly Jan Owen as soon as possible. She then needs to inform the statutory agencies.
Do not:
- Dismiss you concerns – they need to be taken seriously!
- Approach the person about whom you have concerns
- Confront the alleged abuser
- Ask questions to obtain further information – they may only want to tell their story once
- Promise confidentiality, or make promises to the young person/child that you cannot keep
- Stop a young person/child who is freely recalling what has happened. If they are interrupted at this stage they may not continue and might not let you, or anyone else, know what has happened
If you receive an allegation about any adult or about yourself you should contact the designated leaders immediately.
The designated child protection officer is Jan Owen.
Any concerns that a leader has about any situation regarding a child protection issue must be passed on to the designated leaders. Information or concerns should not be discussed with anyone else in the group before you have done this, and confidentiality should be maintained at all times afterwards.