There are a number of policies and procedures groups and organisations who work with children and young people should have in place to run effectively and to help ensure the organisation, its staff and volunteers and its service users are 'safe and sound'.
 
These policies and procedures include having:

• A Safeguarding Children (child protection policy) statement which has been reviewed in the last three years.
• A named person in your organisation who takes responsibility for safeguarding children issues and notifies the Safeguarding Board in the event of an allegation against a member of staff.
• A commitment to employees and volunteers to undertake safeguarding children training which is recorded accurately.
• As part of recruitment processes references are checked with the referee for accuracy.
• Can evidence that all employees or volunteers in direct contact with children have Enhanced Criminal Records Bureau Clearance (CRB).
• Policies and procedures in place to ensure no staff work with children and young people alone and unsupervised until CRB clearance is complete.
• If an allegation is made about staff processes are in place to support children, carers, parents and staff who will seek the advice of the Wolverhampton Safeguarding Board.
• Have a healthy & safety policy in place and includes information for incident reporting.
• Risk assessments are done on all activities and can be evidenced.
• Have a Equal Opportunities policy in place.
• Have public liability insurance to safeguard against loss or injury to staff and service users which is displayed for everyone to see.
• Constitution/Memorandum of Articles of Association.
• Management structure/committee/steering group.
• A project/organisational bank account.

If your organisation does not have any of these in place you can contact the YOW team on 01902 877545 for advice and guidance.