Some basic info here from Ecclesiastical - a large charity insurer. http://www.ecclesiastica...s%20guidance%20notes.pdf and http://www.ecclesiastica...gement-advice/index.aspx The Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service CCPAS is also a good source of free information. Small Charities Coalition - http://www.smallcharitie...urces-commission-guides/ - again free advice. There is also the D of E site, Charity Commission and the NSPCC. I know you don't mention children but the principles are the same for vulnerable adults.

Thanks Stevie. I am sure the links will be of help. Bob - sounds like sensible advice, I will find out a bit more detail. Any other safeguarding information out there would still be welcome though!

The University of Liverpool have published a book called Physical Intervention and the Law, Professor Christina M Lyon and Alexandra Pimar. This book will be helpful when developing your safeguarding policy.

Bob I rather think the Safeguarding is to do with issues of abuse and vulnerability rather than H&S. It can be an absolute minefield.We should not forget that even professional social workers are working in this area and are making mistakes resulting some time in fatalities which hit the press big time. Unless your friend is really familiar in this area then s/he would do well to contact some of the local diocesan Safeguarding Officers.

Safeguarding should not be a minefield (not disagreeing) it should be very simple. If society cannot simply protect people and keep them safe then we have a problem. For the OP. Take a look at the Winterbourne View Report and the recommendations from it. Most importantly is corporate governance and whistleblowing policies.

Toe. Take your point about adults, could have extended the response, but then I would have had to look up the regulatory framework, and I knew the Childrens Act. However, disagree that safeguarding 'belongs' to H&S. Knowing what I do know about safeguarding risks it's hard to see much of a connection. In education authorities there will likely be a safeguarding team. But not connected to the H&S advisory team. Organisations can chose who deals with what, of course, see the thread at the moment on "why is quality part of H&S?". I say it is a wholly different specialty, not H&S, and would only get involved on the periphery. But then I would say that about quality management too.

Bob This is often true in society. However, when organisations are responsible for care of vulnerable people safeguarding is of paramount importance. If you read the 'winterbourne report' there were various warnings of the abuse taking place, even the regulator (Care Quality Commission) received warning but never acted. The abuse was so well known at the Hospital that it took an investigative TV broadcast to expose it. There are many provisions an organisations can be put into place to ensure that safeguarding takes place. Aud Your right, education departments and councils do have people responsible for safeguarding (part of the law) which widely applies to children. However, once a person becomes an adult the law changes. Private organisations do-not always have dedicated people managing this and often the lead comes from the H&S function within these organisations. I'm not saying that safeguarding 'belongs' to H&S, as I have stated, it must be multidisciplinary, where all parties who are involved in the care of the person gets involved in which H&S forms a big part of this function. If organisations are responsible for the care of 'people other than their employees' and this doesn't belong to the H&S function, then which function would it belong to? "The health and safety of people who use care services is covered by the general requirements of Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974, (HSWA s.3)" Extract from the HSE website see link below. http://www.hse.gov.uk/fo...sims/pub_serv/071101.htm

Safeguarding should be a multi-discipline activity with input from HR (recruitment and screening), senior management (policies and aims) and H&S. The H&S involvement is very real. The threat of being sued / investigated for physical abuse is very real and very emotive. Staff become almost paralysed by this fear of what they can and cannot do and it can lead to them becoming victims of assault. Violence against staff members is a H&S issue and suitable training and policies needs to be put in place to allow staff to confidently deal with such incidents, confident that they are not crossing a line and commit physical abuse. There are many recognised courses out there, the ones I recall are Team Teach, Proact Scipr and Breakaway.

Invictus - it can also be a political minefield. Used to work for a charity insurer so was privy to some of the multi-agency investigation reports into allegations. Saw at least two cases where settings were closed on allegations that later turned out to be false. Closure instigated by the LA child services team for fear of having control taken over by Westminster if they were not seen to act. The rammifications at a personal level for the service users (high dependancy 24/7 care for children) were horrific and I remember breaking down during that meeting. Glad to be back in general industry insurance now.

sent you a PM Invictus.

There appears to be some confusion here, and I would like to put my comments into context. I work for an organisation that provides care services for the most vulnerable people in our society. This is why we have to ensure that we manage safeguarding risks to keep these people safe. So my comments are aimed at organisation who require to safeguard people (ASP and RTF in Scotland). It is not clear from the OP if they hold a similar responsibility. But.... I guess that some of the comments made here are appropriate for general organisations but not for care providers or child services that is their primary responsible for ensuring that vulnerable people are kept safe from harm. In which I admit can be difficult but also most of which can be prevented.

Thank you all for all your responses. Just catching up so apologies for the delay in responding further until now. Having spoken to my friend, the Charity already has H&S policies and procedures in place, along with a policy for 'safeguarding'. The Charity offers support for disabled adults who are abused or victimised in some way and as safeguarding appears to change so rapidly, she just wanted to know if there was any best practice out there for her to benchmark the current policy against. For example, under the 'prevent duty' I believe there should be a section/paragraph on'radicalisation and extremism'. Also, according to the 'star standard' for charities, the new terminology is "adults at risk" rather than "vulnerable adults". Ideally therefore, it would be really useful to have copies of any up-to-date policies to see how these aspects have been included. Her role is mainly in HR but the 'safeguarding' aspect appears to be getting an increasing link to H&S (even though I agree a multi-disciplinary approach probably works best) and so she just wanted to know if I had any access to such policies, via my H&S background. Hope that helps provide some background to the situation. Thanks again to all. Rob I accept that a