Turn2us Safeguarding Policy

What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding means keeping people safe while they are in contact with Turn2us. Turn2us wants to keep everyone safe while they are in contact with Turn2us.

This includes:

•    Personnel (staff, volunteers, trustees, co-production partners) 
•    Service users, 
•    Other adults, and 
•    Children

Turn2us wants to keep people safe from any harm or abuse that would be caused by each other, themselves, our activities, or organisational failings whilst in contact with Turn2us. 

How does Turn2us approach safeguarding?

Our safeguarding approach covers our policies, the way we work, and our organisation’s culture. We want all of these to work together to prevent people from being harmed, and so we can respond to safeguarding issues in an effective way.

Turn2us is committed to safeguarding everyone who comes into contact with our organisation and to providing safe environments for the work we do, whether online, over the telephone, or face to face.

Through our safeguarding work, Turn2us wants to work with everyone to create a positive safeguarding culture. This means an environment where:

•    Harm is prevented,
•    Service users feel supported to thrive,
•    Personnel and all those in contact with the organisation feel safe to raise concerns and complaints without fear of repercussions,
•    Imbalances of power are well understood, 
•    The Safeguarding policy is understood and promoted within Turn2us and other 
organisations and partners we work with. 

Turn2us recognises that safeguarding issues can often come from imbalances of power (for example, trustees holding greater power than volunteers; staff holding greater power than grant applicants).

Turn2us recognises that there are systems of injustice in our society that mean some people hold more power than others. These systems constantly and actively oppress people based on characteristics such as race and ethnicity, gender identity, class, sexual orientation, age, and ability (or disability). These characteristics are overlapping and connected, and so is the oppression people experience.

These systems of injustice mean that some people experience the consequences of not holding power in society, may be less able to protect their rights, and can be at a greater risk of harm. Turn2us acknowledges the way injustice means that some people hold more power than others.

Acknowledging this means that we can better understand:

•    people’s varied experiences of harm; 
•    how Turn2us can best empower people to protect their rights; and 
•    how to ensure we do not discriminate in our work. 

Turn2us will:

•    Take a zero-tolerance approach. This means we will record and take seriously all safeguarding concerns and complaints and that we will respond proportionately and robustly in every instance (including disciplinary action where a breach of this policy has occurred).
•    Make sure reporting and response processes are in place and match up with how we work and our organisation’s structures.
•    Use a person-centred approach to safeguarding. This means that the wishes of the person who experienced the safeguarding issue will be listened to when we decide Turn2us’s response.
•    Make sure all personnel have access to and are familiar with the Safeguarding policy and are trained on safeguarding.
•    Make sure we design all programmes and activities in a way that protects people from harm.
•    Make sure that when we are doing activities and programmes, we do them in a way that protects people from harm.
•    Make sure that when we are recruiting and managing personnel, we use safeguarding standards and procedures when that are more than the legal minimum.
•    Learn from our experience, and other organisations’ experiences, to make sure that the Safeguarding policy is reviewed and updated. We will learn from all safeguarding concerns and complaints, particularly from the perspectives of those affected, to improve our safeguarding.
•    Make sure that when we publish and store photos, videos, and other promotional material, we keep the people referred to or pictured in these materials safe. 
•    Make sure that people who do media interviews to talk about how Turn2us has helped them are kept safe.

Updated November 2023.