POCSA
Voluntary Sector Training Pack
And Guide

Policies and procedures which make up an important frame of reference

There are documents, when joined together, form an important frame of reference for managing, in a consistent and fair manner, all care and protection concerns involving children, young people and workers.

1. The steps taken to try to reduce everyday risk of harm to children, young people and workers. Considering the grounds for referral and thinking about acceptable and unacceptable standards of behaviour.
2. The standard of behaviour expected of both paid and volunteer workers towards children and young people (a Code of Conduct);
3. Your organisation’s commitment to the management of child protection issues (a Child Protection Policy Statement);
4. The steps taken by the organisation where there are concerns that a child is experiencing harm, abuse and/or neglect (Child Protection Procedures);
5. The procedure for managing complaints made by service users such as children, young people and their parents/carers (a Complaints Procedure);
6. The procedure for managing grievances raised by workers (a Grievance Procedure);
7. The steps taken to manage serious breaches of behaviour on the part of both paid and volunteer workers (a Disciplinary Procedure);
8. A policy which protects workers who report concerns about the behaviour of other workers (including managers) (a Policy on Whistleblowing).

When making a referral to the List, Scottish Ministers will expect your organisation to be able to justify the referral and to see that your decisions were guided by appropriate policies and procedures.

You may feel concerned at the number of procedures required to help you implement and comply with the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003. However, your organisation probably has many of these in place already. For example, many voluntary organisations combine the Code of Conduct with the Code of Good Practice into one document and refer to it as a Code of Practice, or your may have procedures, only they are not written down – all you need to do is formalise them by writing them down.

It is important that you do not “re-invent the wheel”.

What matters is that you have a useful frame of reference in place for guiding all care and protection decisions.