SAFEGUARDING STATEMENT 

We, at Vocational Training Services, are committed to safeguarding our learners and ensuring young people and vulnerable adults are protected from harm. The term child protection has more recently been referred to as safeguarding because it reflects the wider responsibility for preventing as well as protecting others from harm, and can include a larger scope of people; children, young people, vulnerable adults (including older adults).   

Safeguarding is about being proactive and putting in place measures, in advance of any contact with learners or service users, to ensure others are going to be kept safe.  This includes:

• Ensuring staff are properly checked when they are recruited;
• Providing guidelines for staff who come into contact with learners and service users to ensure they know what they need to do to keep others safe and minimise risk of harm;
• Providing guidelines for reporting concerns, incidents and/or disclosures.

 We believe every learner should be valued, safe and happy.  We want to make sure that those we have contact with know this and are empowered to tell us if they are suffering, or at risk of harm.  If we discover or suspect a learner or service user is suffering harm, or a learner or service user discloses they are suffering from harm we will listen without judgement.   Our Safeguarding Officer is Elizabeth Buxton (Operations Manager) and our Senior Designated Manager is Gail Cooksey (Managing Director); both of whom can be contacted on 01702 353557. 

When dealing with disclosures or suspected abuse we will follow the appropriate processes, as laid out in the Southend Essex & Thurrock Child Protection Procedures (please see http://www.escb.co.uk/) We want people who use or have contact with Vocational Training Services to enjoy what we have to offer in safety.  Learners will be supported to care for others in a way that promotes health and wellbeing and keeps them, and others, safe.We want organisations who work with us, or who provide us funding, to have confidence and recognise that we are a safe organisation. 

We will achieve this by having an effective safeguarding policy, by following the national guidance and by promoting safety and safeguarding to those who use our services. Our commitment and responsibility to safeguarding applies to all our staff, users of our services, visitors and contractors when using our premises.            

Gail Cooksey    Managing Director                                                           

Mandy Holland  Finance Director