Safeguarding and Safe Practice

Overview

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. We want every HAF club to be a safe and happy place for children, and for parents, carers and families to feel confident that their child is well looked after and that robust safeguarding arrangements are in place.

As set out in working together to safeguard children, safeguarding is defined for the purposes of this guidance as:

• protecting children from maltreatment
• preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
• ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
• taking action if you identify children to be at risk of harm

Safeguarding Training is available to all holiday club providers each delivery period. Please contact your Area Lead for more information.

Holiday clubs in school settings

We know that schools are safe places and have safeguarding arrangements in place.
Where activities are provided by the governing body or proprietor of a school, under the direct supervision or management of their school staff the school’s child protection policy will apply.

Where the activities are provided separately in the school but by another body, the governing body or proprietor should seek assurance that the body concerned has appropriate safeguarding and child protection policies and procedure in place.

We recommend that anyone involved in the delivery of a holiday club in school settings is familiar with part 1 of keeping children safe in education.

Holiday clubs in out of school settings

By out-of-school settings we mean organisations or individuals that provide tuition, training, instruction or activities to children in England without their parents’ or carers’ supervision, but are not:

• schools
• colleges
• education settings providing alternative provision
• 16 to 19 academies
• providers caring for children that are registered with Ofsted or a childminder agency 

These settings generally provide tuition, training, instruction or activities outside normal school hours (for example, evenings, weekends, school holidays), although some settings are run part-time during school hours to help meet the needs of those in home education.

The guidance for providers running out-of-school settings on keeping children safe during community activities, after-school clubs, and tuition covers advice on what policies and procedures providers should have in place for:

• health and safety
• safeguarding and child protection
• staff suitability
• governance

Volunteers & DBS checking

To provide reassurance to parents, families and carers, we strongly recommend that all volunteers who are involved in the delivery of the It’s About Me programme have an enhanced DBS check (which, where applicable, should include children’s barred list information).

There may be a very small number of volunteers who do not regularly carry out this role, and so it may not be considered as regulated activity. This means they may not be required to have an enhanced DBS check.

We do not recommend holiday clubs using volunteers that are not DBS checked, but if this occurs, it is the responsibility of the local authority to ensure that volunteers are not at any point left alone and unsupervised with children in holiday clubs.

Example

A guest speaker or presenter visits a holiday, activities and food programme club to deliver a talk on nature. The guest is escorted by staff at the club (who are DBS checked) while on the premises and is not left unsupervised with children at any time. In these circumstances, we would not expect a DBS check to be carried out.

Other workers

All staff who are employed by holiday clubs funded through the It’s About Me programme should be subject to an enhanced DBS check with barred list information.

Part 3 of keeping children safe in education sets out a clear process for safe recruitment. We recommend holiday cubs providers follow this best practice when recruiting volunteers.

Ofsted registration

Holiday clubs may need to legally register with Ofsted depending on the provision they offer, they may also be eligible to register with Ofsted on the voluntary register or they may be exempt from registration entirely. Both clubs and providers that would require registration with Ofsted, and those that are exempt, can participate in the HAF programme.

To support the raising of quality and to better meet the safeguarding needs of children and young people, certain providers can choose to register with Ofsted even if they do not have to.

One of the direct benefits to children and families of providers being Ofsted registered is that families may be eligible for tax free childcare or the childcare costs element of Universal Credit. Through this families may be able to claim back up to 85% of their childcare costs if they are attending and paying for extra childcare at Ofsted registered settings.

It is the responsibility of individual HAF providers to understand whether they are required by law to be Ofsted registered and to continue to review their status as and when the provision they are offering changes.

We expect local authorities to check with all their HAF providers that they are appropriately registered, particularly those providers who may have amended their childcare offer during the holidays because of the HAF programme.