Safeguarding Policy
Making sure you feel safe is the most important part of our ethos of ‘Serious joy’. Below is our policy for how we would act in different circumstances that might affect safety.
The Listening Clubs are private and confidential – nothing you say to us will be reported to the social services, the authorities, the police, or others in our community. This is a deliberate decision as we know that not all currently available services are ready to adequately support people with lived experience of child sexual abuse. We are under no legal obligation to report on your behalf. There are three situations to make you aware of:
01
Triggered by Historical Abuse
If there is a situation where you express that your mental health is affected by topics discussed, including retriggering historical abuse, then we will signpost you to some organisations which could help to advise you on what is best to do next. There is always a trained mental health first aider at all of our events.
02
Suspecting a child is at risk
If there is a situation where you tell us that you suspect that there is a young person or child currently at risk of sexual abuse, we will help to signpost you to some organisations that can advise you on what is best to do next. For example, you might notice a child’s behaviour is different around certain adults and want to know how best to approach this.
03
Knowledge that there is a child currently being abused
If there is a situation where you express actual knowledge of an identifiable young person or child who is currently being sexually abused, we will encourage you to report the abuse. In very exceptional circumstances, we may also make a referral. For example, you tell us the name of a child that you have witnessed being sexually abused, or you see worrying messages on their phone.
We understand that these situations may affect whether you feel like you can speak openly. We have tried our best to prioritise child safety in this complex environment and wrote these guidelines with people whose abuse may have been prevented if similar policies were in place when they were children. These policies were written together with a human rights lawyer, ethicists, trauma-informed designers and fellow survivors.
Sometimes these policies may be overridden if we collaborate with someone who has a legal opportunity for mandatory reporting, for example if working with a psychologist, or outside of the UK. If this is the case, we disclose at the start of our events.