Safeguarding is an important topic for any voluntary or community group to consider, and many groups are being asked to provide safeguarding policies in order to do things like hold events in green spaces.

What is safeguarding? Safeguarding is about the ways we protect vulnerable people from different types of harm.

We believe that participating in activities in parks should be a positive and safe activity. As such we want to encourage green spaces friends group and others to ensure that staff and volunteers, whether paid or voluntary, adopt safe working practices to ensure their safety and the safety of others. As part of this responsibility, those organising events should acknowledge that some of employees and volunteers may encounter vulnerable individuals, including children and adults, during their work. We therefore think that it is important to provide support and advice to staff and volunteers to ensure they carry out their duties safely and responsibly.

To assist groups, CPRE London, a key partner in GoParksLondon, would like to share its safeguarding policy. This covers the following areas: child safeguarding, adult safeguarding, personal safety, and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse. This policy can be found here, for information, along with some risk assessment templates for activities and events, and a reporting form here.

Groups will want to develop their own approaches, perhaps in consultation with local authority staff, considering the nature of their own group and site, as safeguarding policies and risk assessments work best when they are tailored to the needs and circumstances of each group.

CPRE London is not a safeguarding specialist, so although we believe our documents reflect good practice, we cannot accept liability for the use of these documents by others.