Over the last few months, the Safeguarding team at the LDG have been rewriting and putting into place a safeguarding policy and some procedures which we’d like to highlight here.

Let’s start by agreeing that no amount of paperwork or procedure will prevent a very small minority wanting to do harm to individuals. The responsibility for not doing harm rests on the shoulders of every one of us, individually. Our best line of defence in protecting young people (and other vulnerable people) from those that want to do harm is to be vigilant to the possibility of malice or manipulation, and to challenge it and prevent it wherever we see it.  As a guild, we need to be able to say that we do everything we reasonably can to educate and inform people of the dangers out there, and to keep records in case of anything untoward happening to our members.

The CCCBR, who coordinate the activities of ringing around the world, and the Diocese, whose buildings and facilities we routinely use have asked that we insist on four things.  Some of these can be implemented immediately, and our thanks go out to those that have already done this!  Some of them will take a little time to organise and to become embedded.

1. A register should be taken of people attending each practice or service ringing, with ringers under 18 indicated in some way. The registers can be handed to your local safeguarding officer when the book or document is complete.  Many towers are already routinely doing this, and some use it as a record of the practice, what is rung, milestones, special occasions etc as well…in future years these are interesting documents in their own right.  It’s wise to include things like non-ringing visitors who wandered in as an aside, but there’s no need to chase random members of the public down the road asking for names etc.  A possible template on Excel is available on the guild website should you wish to use it.  Registers when they are complete, or every few months, can be left with your Parish Safeguarding Officer.  

2. Each active guild member takes the Basic Awareness safeguarding training.  This is a sort online course designed to ensure that adults know what to look for, what the signs are, and what to do if there’s a concern.  It can be accessed here https://safeguardingtraining.cofeportal.org/. Once your training is complete, your Tower Captain should be able to let the Parish Safeguarding Officer know. 

3. Each Tower Captain or equivalent should also take the Foundation safeguarding training, found at the same link.  This is slightly more involved, but still online.

4. People who teach bell handling should have a current DBS certificate. Unfortunately, this needs to be issued for the purposes of ringing, and is not transferrable from other jobs/activities.  Again, your Parish Safeguarding Officer should be able to have this organised by the diocese on your behalf.  It should be an “Enhanced” check, and should also include a search on the “Barred List for Children”.  Unfortunately, neither of these are standard.

This can all feel rather overwhelming at first sight, and we are very grateful to those that have taken the changes in the spirit that they are intended, ie to protect our young people.  It’s also worth noting that things like the registers have been used to demonstrate that people who had restrictions on their mixing with under-18s have breached these restrictions, and they have therefore been taken out of circulation.  Without the small things happening at local level, this wouldn’t be possible, and our thanks go out to all those that have adapted already.

Although we realise this is quite a big change for some people, we are confident that it will (and already has) make a difference to how we protect our young and vulnerable.  We also know that once the initial changes have been made, most of this is just routine good practice. As we said earlier, the best way to protect people is to be vigilant and to challenge where we feel something is not right.

Many thanks.

Ian Maynard-Smith and Will Norton

Full details about the Guild safeguarding policy can be found at https://leicesterdg.org.uk/safeguarding/