Professionals and organisations

3. If you are:

• already part of an existing organisation or group in education , charity, entertainment and leisure, health, GP and PMS services, dental, faith-based, or overseas then the necessary policies should already be in place and freely accessible. You should also seek permission from the people, governors/ board members or trustees in charge to connect to ‘at risk’ groups by phone, online or via social media
• working in developing a service or activity which connects ‘at risk’ groups, as a group, or as an individual, you will need to put safeguarding at the forefront of your planning. SAFE Membership can help with this is it includes many up to date pro-forma versions of the documents required.
  

4. If, for example, you are running a group providing one to one sessions, organising virtual meet-ups or peer to peer support, there are important decisions and practical steps that will be required to ensure compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and safeguarding those you will be working with.

In these fast-changing times we find ourselves living through, it might be tempting to skip some of the steps required to work safely with ‘at risk’ groups. This is not an option. As a professional taking the lead you will need to think through the implications of what needs to be considered and carry out safeguarding risk assessments to decide what should be in place for:

• seeking parental consent for all those under 13 years of age, (by ’confirmed’ parent/carer e-mail is fine)
• seeking individual users' consent for those over 13 and assessing they have the mental capacity to do so
• the use of personal e-mail addresses and personal phones and iPads
• monitoring and ‘policing’ closed social media groups
• mixing age ranges of the social media and other groups who are either under, or over 18
• the implications around data capture and storage
• confidentiality and information sharing
• record keeping
• monitoring and supervision

5.  In normal times good practice would be to always avoid using personal e-mails and devices. If this cannot be avoided in these difficult times, be very careful about maintaining professional boundaries as you would with face to face work and:

• be clear about confidentiality and how you will only share information if you are concerned about someone's welfare
• record everything you do, real time audio and visual where possible
• ensure everyone you work with knows and agrees to this
• if you cannot record real time, record notes of the purpose of the session, what was said and achieved. Store them on your organisation's secure storage server or similar, wherever possible
• retain records of ‘chatroom’ activity, where hosted by you
• be clear how long you will keep the records
• keep all e-mails for the time outlined in your privacy and data protection policies
• always use your organisation's website, social media platform and your professional e-mail account
• if working with individual children, young people or ‘adults at risk’, it is good practice to involve a colleague with all interactions
• if it is vital to work one to one online, check there is a responsible adult, who knows what you are doing, present and nearby in the home

The Information Commissioner's Office has these guidelines on "How do I work from home securely?"

6. Some useful advice can be found at:

• UK Safer Internet Centre
• SWGfL
• Ineqe
• IWF
• Information Commissioners Office

and you can contact The Professionals Online Safety Helpline (POSH) for general  enquiries

Please let us know if we are using outdated information, advice or links. We also welcome any comments and suggestions to improve our support and information.