RESOURCE FOCUS

Resource focus: Equipping Trustees

1-5 November is National Trustees’ Week and to mark the week we're focusing on some of our new and existing resources especially designed for supporting and equipping Trustees.

Trustees are the people in charge of a charity. For some churches this may be the Deacons, Elders or PCC members. Whether you’re a church or charity, it’s likely that your trustees play vital role, volunteering their time and working together to make important decisions about your organisation’s work. There are approximately 196,000 charities in the UK and just over 1 million trustees. Including many young Trustees (approximately 86,000 trustee positions are held by 16-34 year olds). Charity trustees have ultimate oversight of, and responsibility for, all aspects of the charity’s operation. They are the governing body of the charity and, as such, are legally accountable for all aspects of running the charity including Safeguarding. One of the most important and comprehensive responsibilities of charity trustees is their duty of care both to their charity and towards their beneficiaries. Where a charity is working with vulnerable beneficiaries such as children and young people (those under 18 years of age), or with adults who may be at risk of harm, then they need to have safeguards in place to protect everyone from abuse.

IN ORDER TO FULFIL THEIR DUTY OF CARE TO THEIR CHARITY, TRUSTEES SHOULD ENSURE THAT THEY HAVE A SUITABLE SAFEGUARDING POLICY IN PLACE.

The charity needs to promote itself as a safe place in order to give beneficiaries and public confidence in the charity. This demonstrates that the trustees are acting in the best interests of vulnerable beneficiaries, that they have taken reasonable steps to prevent harm, and that they have assessed and managed risk. As part of the support we offer organisations, we’ve developed a two and a half hour training webinar for those who have a trustee or leadership role in organisations that hold charitable status which explores their governance role as a trustee and to enhance their knowledge of safeguarding duties and responsibilities. Split across three modules, this online interactive course covers: The safeguarding landscape within the charitable sector across the UK; Essential requirements for effective safeguarding governance; and how to respond to and report serious incidents.

Alongside our hugely popular webinar we are about to launch a new eLearning course specifically for trustees to help them gain a basic understanding of what safeguarding is and the role trustees play. Our Basic Awareness course has already proved extremely successful and made it even easier for people to access our world class learning. Learning at a time that is convenient for all means no more trying to get everyone in a room together or align diaries to attend training. We’ll be launching this eLearning soon so do keep an eye on our website and e-news to find out more.

Our members will already be familiar with our online safeguarding manual, which contains all the information your need in implementing good safeguarding practice across an organisation. This includes our popular Practice Guides which are now freely accessible to organisations and includes a guide on what charity trustees need to know. Using the guide which can be downloaded from our website along with the following 10 point ‘people and risk’ checklist can be a really useful place to begin in assessing where you are as a charity and help you identify any areas for development:

A 10-point ‘people and risk’ checklist

1. Are you satisfied that your recruitment processes are robust and have inbuilt safeguards? 2. Have those on the staff team and trustee board who lead on recruitment undergone safer recruitment training? 3. Have you read and understood the system for obtaining DBS checks, including the use of the update service? 4. Do your new recruits have a mandatory induction and trial working period? 5. Do you know what safeguarding training is available to staff, volunteers and board members? 6. Do your staff members and volunteers receive regular supervision and annual appraisals? 7. Do you know that your staff and volunteers are competent? 8. Do you have a whistleblowing policy and procedure? 9. Are you clear about your responsibilities to report allegations made against staff and volunteers to the LADO?

10.Are you clear about your legal duty to refer to the DBS?

For more information about our training for trustees go with thirtyoneeight.org/ webinars or for further guidance go to: thirtyoneeight.org/trusteehelp

thirtyoneeight.org

Safeguarding Sunday 10th October 2021

Join hundreds of churches across the country who throughout October will be highlighting all the incredible work that is being done to make our churches safer for all.

It’s your chance to:

Explain why safeguarding is so important Talk about what you have in place to keep people safe Introduce your safeguarding team Acknowledge and thank your volunteers Commit together as a church to create safer places for all

thirtyoneeight.org/safeguarding-sunday

Join the conversation