SAFE GUARDING AT ‘THE VAYYU FOUNDATION’

Whether we are cleaning plastic out of the rivers in Hertfordshire to the shores on India, our staff is always our first priority. We want to ensure that everyone who comes into contact with our organisation is safe. We call this area of our work ‘Safeguarding’. 

Our safeguarding commitment is to ensure that both children and adults are protected from both deliberate and accidental harm and abuse caused by ‘The Vayyu Foundation’ staff and other representatives.

HOW WE WORK TO PREVENT MISCONDUCT.

The key to our safeguarding is prevention and making reporting concerns as easy as possible for children, parents, community members and all our staff. Our reporting strategies are diverse, and are often developed with children and the community to ensure that they work for the particular setting, culture and environment.

We consult safeguarding specialists around the world who work closely with children and adults in the communities we support and our staff to ensure that their feedback on our programmes, approach and behaviour are acted on and listened to. These specialists can also support leadership and other teams in our Foundation to build a safe environment and a strong safeguarding culture in our programmes. 

They conduct awareness raising campaigns on safeguarding and they work to prevent the abuse of adults and children. These specialists are the people who also lead investigations of reported safeguarding concerns and manage how reports are handled.

We also have started staff training to deal with any safeguarding concerns and to manage how reports are handled. 

“THESE STEPS WE TAKE TO ENSURE THAT CHILDREN & ADULTS ARE SAFEGUARDED.”

• Listening to adults and children in the communities we work in, and build in child and adult participation and feedback into all of our programming and advocacy work.

• Proactively promote and maintain clear, accessible and anonymous reporting mechanisms.

• Make children, their families, communities and our staff aware of the standards of behaviour they can expect from us and of how they can raise a concern if any of these codes of conducts are breached.

• We ensure all representatives are aware of the risks of child and adult abuse, their safeguarding responsibilities, and the requirement to report.

• Learn lessons from all incidents, and ensure learning is implemented.

• Limit the opportunities for any staff, volunteers and partners to abuse children, for example, by ensuring that no child or children are ever left alone with a staff member.

• Take all concerns seriously, and respond rapidly in a survivor-focused way.

• Complete full criminal records check and referencing for all staff during our recruitment phases.

• An In-depth safeguarding induction and refresher training for staff, at least once every two years.

• Report all and any serious concerns to the Charity Commission and donors as appropriate.