Safeguarding Policy and Procedures

Policy Aims

Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival (“the Festival”) recognises that they have a duty of care to promote the wellbeing of and safeguard from harm all children and vulnerable adults who are involved in our events. All children and vulnerable adults have a right to respect and protection. This policy sets out the roles and responsibilities of all committee members, staff and volunteers of the Festival each of whom are expected to understand these responsibilities to safeguard children and vulnerable adults and to follow this policy and procedures.

Definitions

For the purposes of this policy, “children” are regarded as any persons under the age of 18. “Vulnerable adults” are defined as any person who, for any reason, may be unable to take care of themselves or protect themselves against significant harm or exploitation. Where this policy refers to staff this includes anyone employed or engaged by the Festival and all its volunteers. In particular, it refers to anyone engaged in the planning and delivery of activities linked to children or vulnerable adults on behalf of the Festival including volunteers and committee members.

Keeping children, young people and vulnerable adults safe

We will seek to keep children, young people and vulnerable adults safe by appointing a Trustee as a Designated Safeguarding Lead. The Designated Safeguarding Lead at the date of this Policy is Jackie Burnett.
We will adopt Safeguarding best practice through our policies and procedures for staff and volunteers.
We will recruit and select staff and volunteers safely and ensure they follow this policy and procedures.

During Festival events

During all Festival events, staff and volunteers will wear BuryLitFest lanyards to identify them, so that concerns can be reported correctly.
Each volunteer will have the contact details of the Festival’s Designated Safeguarding Lead, plus the relevant Safeguarding Lead at each venue/event.
It is a condition of booking tickets for Festival events, that children under the age of 12 attending Festival events must be accompanied at all times by their parent or guardian.
The Festival is not responsible for the supervision of children or vulnerable adults at any time during the Festival
No Festival staff are permitted to be alone with a child except in cases of emergency (e.g. first aid is required) or instances where the child would otherwise be in danger
No unauthorised photography or audio or video recording of children is permitted during Festival events. If a parent or guardian does not wish their child to be photographed/recorded at all, it is their responsibility, before the event in question, to inform Festival staff of that fact.

Responsibility for Venues

The Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival uses local venues for its events. Bury Literature Festival will carry out a Risk Assessment for the Festival overall and for each event. This will include ensuring there is adequate First Aid provision and arrangements to deal with Fire Safety. The Festival will provide oversight during the event to ensure, as far as is possible, that everyone at the event is safe.

Prevention and Procedures

The Festival Terms and Conditions state the requirement for children and/or vulnerable adults to be accompanied and supervised throughout the festival by parents/carers or teachers. The Terms & Conditions are posted on the Festival website, alongside this policy and referred to on family event tickets. Festival staff and volunteers cannot accept responsibility for the supervision of any child(ren) or vulnerable adults attending events. Where DBS checks have not been confirmed for visiting authors, schools will be notified in advance to ensure their own safeguarding procedures are adhered to.

No unauthorised photography, audio or video recording of children or vulnerable adults is allowed. Where parents or carers do not wish photos to be taken at all, then the responsible adult attending should ensure that their child is not included in the official photos. During school events, teaching staff should advise which pupils are not able to appear in photographs.

Finally

It is everyone’s responsibility to report safeguarding concerns. This is a legal obligation. If Festival staff or volunteers believe a child to be in immediate danger, they must ring 999 immediately to report to the Police. Any other safeguarding concerns should be reported to the appropriate Designated Safeguarding Lead as soon as possible and, in any event, within one day. It is the responsibility of the Designated Safeguarding Lead to record and ensure that any serious incidents are dealt with effectively.

This policy will be reviewed annually by the Trustees

January 2025