Herts County Auto and Aero Club

Policy Statement on Child Protection

Herts County Auto and Aero Club ("HCAAC") is committed to providing a safe environment for children* and one where the child's welfare is paramount.

HCAAC recognise that safeguarding children is the responsibility of everyone, not just those who work with children and believe that all children whatever their age, culture, disability, gender, language, racial origin, religious belief and/or sexual identity, have the right to protection from abuse.

HCAAC will:

• Treat all children with respect
• Carefully recruit and select all club officials, suppliers and
• Respond swiftly and appropriately to all complaints and concerns about poor practice or suspected or actual child abuse.

All suspicions and allegations of inappropriate behaviour will be taken seriously and responded to swift and appropriately by HCAAC.

All relevant concerns, allegations and complaints and their outcome should be notified to the HCAAC Child Protection Officer.

This policy relates to all club officials, members, suppliers and volunteers who work with children or vulnerable adults in the course of their duties.

This policy will be kept under periodic review.

(*As defined in the Children Act 1989, anyone under the age of 18 years is considered to be a child for the purposes of this Policy Statement.)

Child Protection Officer

HCAAC’s appointed Child Protection Officer is

Mrs Evelyn Gibbs

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Herts County Auto and Aero Club

Code of Practice on Child Protection

Culture

HCAAC recognise that it is important that the club operates in such a way that both children and adults feel able to raise concerns, knowing that they will be taken seriously, treated confidentially and will not make the situation worse for themselves or others.

Minimising risk

HCAAC seek to minimise situations where adults are working unobserved or could take advantage of their position of trust.

All club officials, members, suppliers and volunteers should:

• Avoid spending any significant time working with children in isolation
• Not take children alone in a car, however short the journey
• Not take children to their own home as part of the clubs activity
• Where any of these are unavoidable, ensure that they only occur with the full knowledge and consent of someone in charge of the club or the child’s parents

All club officials, members, suppliers and volunteers should not;

• engage in rough, physical or sexually provocative games
• allow or engage in inappropriate touching of any form
• allow children to use inappropriate language unchallenged, or use such language themselves when with children
• make sexually suggestive comments to a child, even in fun
• fail to respond to an allegation made by a child; always act
• do things of a personal nature that children can do for themselves.

Handling concerns, reports or allegations

Always:

• stay calm – ensure that the child is safe and feels safe
• show and tell the child that you are taking what he/she says seriously
• reassure that child and stress that he/she is not to blame
• be careful about physical contact, it may not be what the child wants
• be honest, explain that you will have to tell someone else to help stop the alleged abuse
• make a record of what the child has said as soon as possible after the event
• ensure that you report the allegation to HCAAC’s Child Protection Officer

Never:

• rush into actions that may be inappropriate
• make promises you cannot keep (eg. you won’t tell anyone)
• ask more questions than are necessary for you to be sure that you need to act
• take sole responsibility – consult someone else (ideally HCAAC’s designated Child Protection Officer or the person in charge or someone you can trust) so that you can begin to protect the child and gain support for yourself.