Safeguarding

OCC believes that everyone we come into contact with, regardless of age, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation or ethnic origin has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation.

The definition of organisational safeguarding is “the range of measures in place to protect people in a charity, or those it comes into contact with, from abuse and maltreatment of any kind.”

Our safeguarding measures apply equally to the board of trustees, all staff contracted by OCC (under any contractual mechanism) and associated personnel whilst engaged with work or visits related to OCC, including volunteers and our ESC volunteers. We commit to addressing safeguarding throughout our work using the three pillars of prevention, reporting and response. You can read more about these pillars in the next section.

IMPORTANT: If you face any issue right now, you can contact your the designated safeguarding leads directly through the page below. Or, read further below how you can report issues through other ways.

pageMain contacts

How does OCC work on safeguarding?

Prevention

• Follow up safeguarding reports and concerns according to policy and procedure, and legal and statutory obligations;

• Apply appropriate disciplinary measures to staff found in breach of policy. It is OCC's policy to report all crimes to the relevant law enforcement authorities unless doing so may pose a risk to anyone involved in the case.

• Within its means, OCC will offer support to survivors of harm caused by staff or associated personnel, regardless of whether a formal internal response is carried out (such as an internal investigation).

Response

• OCC will ensure that safe, appropriate, accessible means of reporting safeguarding concerns are made available to staff and those we come in to contact with.

• To enable this, OCC has appointed Vincent van Grondelle & Maria Serra as the named safeguarding Designated Persons who are responsible for ensuring that safeguarding is given high priority within OCC and that all safeguarding reports are dealt with in a timely manner.

Reporting

• Ensure all staff have access to, are familiar with and know their responsibilities concerning our Safeguarding policy.

• Undertake our operations in a way that protects people from any risk of harm that may arise from their coming into contact with OCC.

• Implement appropriate safeguarding procedures when recruiting, managing and deploying staff and associated personnel.

• Ensure staff receive orientation on safeguarding at a level commensurate with their role in the organisation.

• Appoint a Designated Person to ensure that safeguarding is given a high priority within OCC.

• Follow up on reports of safeguarding concerns promptly and according to due process.

SOURCE: The above information and protocols are based on the Safeguarding introduction of INSO: the International NGO Safety Organisation.

Important safeguarding documentation

Code of Conduct

Our Code of Conduct defines the base rules of everyone working or participating in Open Cultural Center's activities. It is part of prevention: if we follow these rules, we will prevent safeguarding issues.

pageCode of Conduct

Safeguarding policies

To ensure proper safeguarding and provide clear rules and and protocols to prevent, respond and report to safeguarding issues, we have developed policies that clearly describe our safeguarding guidelines.

pagePolicies

Safeguarding reporting

In case you want to report a (potential) safeguarding issue, please follow the link below for more information.

pageReporting

Working definitions

For the purposes of this policy, and procedures contained within it, the following working definitions are used:

Abuse

Abuse’ is used in its widest sense and includes physical, emotional / psychological and sexual abuse, neglect and negligent treatment, violence and exploitation in all forms.

Child/Children

Refers to anyone under the age of 18 years old, irrespective of the age of majority in their country, or the country where they are located or living.

Child Protection Incident

Refers to when an allegation is made, even if it is unsubstantiated, that a child is being abused or is likely to be abused.

Safeguarding Incident

Refers to when an allegation is made, even if it is unsubstantiated, that a person is being subjected to preventable risk by the actions of another.

Designated Safeguarding Lead

The person mainly in charge to handle Safeguarding concerns in a specific OCC location.

Partners

There are three clear distinctions between partners:

• Those whom OCC have a contract with and as such are required to comply with child safeguarding/child protection as a condition of the contract, such as NGOs and Community based organizations (CBOs).

• Those where the relationship is less formal or built upon mutual work and interests, such as a network or coalition, rather than a formal contract. In these cases we may be able to positively influence the practice of the partner, even if we cannot insist upon observing child protection/child safeguarding practice as a condition of our partnership.

• Those who form part of a consortium or who are associated with the wider child and social protection system. This could include Ministries, Government Departments and Agencies, Statutory Authorities and other organisations including universities and research bodies. In these cases we should seek to advocate for child safeguarding across their activities and to positively influence their policies and procedures. This might include providing technical support.

Team members

Team members of OCC can be divided into two groups:

• Staff: The term staff replies to anyone who works for or on behalf of OCC on a full time or part time basis. As such it includes employed staff, interns, and consultants.

• Volunteers: The term volunteers relates to anyone working for OCC on an unpaid basis.

  • A Standing Volunteer is one who works for OCC on a regular and ongoing basis. They may undertake a range of activities, and for representative purposes be considered similar to staff except that they are not paid. All Standing Volunteers should follow the same processes in terms of safeguarding, including recruitment checks and the signing of the Code of Conduct as staff. ESC volunteers also fall under this category.

  • An Occasional Volunteer is one who works for OCC on a one-off basis, typically for a specific task or campaign. However, even though their involvement with OCC can be limited at any one time, it may be repeated over several years or more. All Occasional Volunteers should be recruited and managed in accordance with the safeguarding policy and will be required to sign and abide by the Code of Conduct if their work brings them into contact with service users.