Safeguarding Adults
Safeguarding Adults is the process of protecting adults with care and support needs from abuse and neglect.
Abuse is described in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as either: physical, sexual, psychological, financial, discriminatory, institutional, neglect, self-neglect or modern slavery.
The Care Act requires everyone involved in both preventative safeguarding work and when responding to allegations or incidents of abuse to apply six key principles: empowerment, prevention, proportionality, protection, partnership and accountability.
They should take a person centred approach and ensure that (i) the person’s choices are properly recognised and (ii) that the person is involved as much as they can and want to be in plans to reduce risks and keep them safe.
Hft supports people who may be less able to protect themselves from abuse and provides training, guidance and support to all staff to enable them to recognise and respond to any concerns about poor practice and abuse.
Find out more about guidance for Hft staff teams.
Voices to be Heard and Accessible Safeguarding Resources for people with learning disabilities
People with learning disabilities have a right to live their lives free from abuse, neglect and discrimination. Knowing when they are being treated badly, neglected or abused and who to tell can put a stop to abuse.
Hft’s Voices to be Heard group represents people who have support from Hft. They have produced some accessible Safeguarding Resources and want other people with learning disabilities to use these resources to help them:
- understand their rights
- recognise when they are at risk of abuse or neglect
- know who to tell when this happens
They are then more likely to stop abuse happening or continuing.
These are the accessible safeguarding resources produced by Voices to be Heard:
- Online safety
- My story – keeping safe on line
- Good secrets and bad secrets
- Good secrets and bad secrets – activity
- Are you getting what you should from Hft?
- Making things better – Complaints form
- Safeguarding adults – keeping you safe
Hate and Mate Crime
Voices to be Heard are particularly concerned about the amount of hate and mate crime that people with learning disabilities experience.
Hate Crime is when someone with a learning disability is abused because of their disability or because of their race or gender or sexual orientation.
Mate Crime is when someone with a learning disability is abused by a person who pretends to be a friend so that they can use or abuse them.
Voices to be Heard recommend the following film. It is hard hitting and some people may be shocked by some of the content.
Family Carers
Hft’s Family Carer Support Service (FCSS) can provide support to family carers who have concerns about abuse of their family member.
Safeguarding at Hft
At Hft, we take our responsibility to safeguard the adults we support very seriously.
Hft support workers must complete Safeguarding Adults training (and safeguarding children if applicable) as part of their Induction, plus refresher training at regular intervals. In addition, all Hft support workers must follow our Safeguarding Operational Standards, which can be made available to family members on request.
If you’d like to know more about Safeguarding at Hft, please do get in touch.