Serenity For Girls is committed to building a ‘culture of safety’ in which the children in our care are protected from abuse, harm and radicalisation.

Serenity For Girls will respond promptly and appropriately to all incidents or concerns regarding the safety of a child that may occur.

Our procedures comply with all relevant legislation and with guidance issued by the Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership. There is a named person to report any safeguarding concerns while any online sessions are taking place.

The person is Danielle Maynard (Director)

Child abuse and neglect

Child abuse is any form of physical, emotional or sexual mistreatment or lack of care that leads to injury or harm. An individual may abuse or neglect a child directly, or by failing to protect them from harm. Some forms of child abuse and neglect are listed below.

• Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child so as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve making the child feel that they are worthless, unloved, or inadequate. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, though it may occur alone.
• Physical abuse can involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may be also caused when a parent or carer feigns the symptoms of, or deliberately causes, ill health to a child.
• Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. This can involve physical contact, or non-contact activities such as showing children sexual activities or encouraging them to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
• Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and emotional needs. It can involve a failure to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter, to protect a child from physical and emotional harm, to ensure adequate supervision or to allow access to medical treatment.

Signs of child abuse and neglect

Signs of possible abuse and neglect may include:

• significant changes in a child's behaviour
• deterioration in a child’s general well-being
• unexplained bruising or marks
• comments made by a child which give cause for concern
• reasons to suspect neglect or abuse outside the setting, eg in the child’s home, or that a girl may have been subjected to (or is at risk of) female genital mutilation (FGM), or that the child may have witnessed or be living with domestic abuse
• inappropriate behaviour displayed by a member of staff, or any other person. For example, inappropriate sexual comments, excessive one-to-one attention beyond the requirements of their role, or inappropriate sharing of images.

If abuse is suspected or disclosed

When a child makes a disclosure to myself I will:

• reassure the child that they were not to blame and were right to speak out
• listen to the child but not question them
• give reassurance that the staff member will take action
• record the incident as soon as possible

Logging a concern

All information about the suspected abuse or disclosure, or concern about radicalisation, will be recorded on the Logging a concern form as soon as possible after the event. The record should include:

• date of the disclosure, or the incident, or the observation causing concern
• date and time at which the record was made
• name and date of birth of the child involved
• a factual report of what happened. If recording a disclosure, you must use the child’s own words
• name, signature and job title of the person making the record.

The record will be given to the DSL who will decide on the appropriate course of action.

For concerns about child abuse, Danielle will contact Social Care. Danielle will follow up all referrals to Social Care in writing within 48 hours. If a member of staff thinks that the incident has not been dealt with properly, they may contact Social Care directly.

For minor concerns regarding radicalisation, Danielle will contact Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership. For more serious concerns Danielle will contact the Police on the non-emergency number (101), or the anti-terrorist hotline on 0800 789 321. For urgent concerns. Danielle will contact the Police using 999.

Allegations against staff

If anyone makes an allegation of child abuse against a member of staff:

• The allegation will be recorded on an Incident record form. Any witnesses to the incident should sign and date the entry to confirm it.
• The allegation must be reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and to Ofsted. The LADO will advise if other agencies (eg police) should be informed, and the Club will act upon their advice. Any telephone reports to the LADO will be followed up in writing within 48 hours.
• Following advice from the LADO, it may be necessary to suspend the member of staff pending full investigation of the allegation.
• If appropriate, the Club will make a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Use of mobile phones and cameras

Photographs will not be taken during any of the live sessions.

Neither staff, myself, children nor online visitors may use their mobile phones or wearable technology such as smart watches to take photographs during any of the online sessions.

Important contact numbers

Danielle Maynard: 07396 387 672

Social Care: 0121 303 1888

Social Care out-of-hours contact: 0121 675 4806

Police: 101 (non-emergency) or 999 (emergency)

Anti-terrorist hotline: 0800 789 321

NSPCC: 0808 800 500

Ofsted: 0300 123 1231

Written in accordance with the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (2021): Safeguarding and Welfare requirements: Child Protection [3.4-3.8] and Suitable People [3.9-3.13].