Happy New Year Safeguarding Champion!
New Year = New Bulletin. We hope you like our new style and enjoy reading it!
Please circulate the information in this bulletin across your networks to help us to continue to raise awareness of safeguarding adults in Tees.
Learning from recently published Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SAR)
Policies, Procedures and Guidance
A Spotlight on Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence
Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week falls between 5th – 11th February 2024. The week provides an opportunity for organisations to raise awareness of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence and the support that is available.
In Teesside, there are specialist services available to support those who have experienced Sexual Abuse and Violence; follow the links for more information.
Arch Teesside is a specialist sexual violence service offering free and confidential support, help and advocacy to people in the Teesside area who have experienced rape and sexual abuse, at any point in their lives, whether they have reported to the police or not.
Teesside SARC offers a comprehensive service for adults living in Teesside, who have experienced sexual violence or sexual abuse. They can access The Teesside SARC via the Police and other professionals, as well as via the self-referral pathway (booking an appointment at the SARC, without Police involvement). At the SARC, individuals will be offered support and guidance, a medical assessment/treatment, a forensic examination, and the opportunity of aftercare referrals for support services.
A Way Out are a specialist service supporting women and young people who have experienced sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.
Support is also available from Domestic Abuse services including Harbour, My Sisters Place, Eva, and Halo.
How to get involved with the campaign:
- Print and display TSAB’s Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation Leaflet to share with colleagues and members of the public
- Find out more about the specialist services in your area and strengthen your links with these professionals
- Share TSAB’s social media posts during the week on Facebook/ X – @TeeswideSAB
- Raise awareness within your communities and networks
- Strengthen your own understanding of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation (you could complete some of our e-learning)
Our Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation Leaflet can be found below, please print and share this within your organisation. For more information on Sexual Abuse visit our webpage.
Our Safeguarding Champions Event will take place during Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness week (5th—9th February 2024).
Date: Wednesday 7th February 2024
Time: 9am—12:30pm
Location: Microsoft Teams
Guest Speakers will include:
- ARCH presenting on Sexual Violence and Abuse
- Safer Communities presenting on Financial Abuse and Scams
- TSAB presenting on Learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews
- Independent Voices Advocacy Service presenting on their service and the Safe Place Scheme.
“ARCH Teesside is a specialist sexual violence service offering free and confidential support, help and advocacy to people in the Teesside area who have experienced rape and sexual abuse, at any point in their lives. We have been supporting survivors of sexual violence for over 26 years, with the expansion and development of services to ensure that all survivors of sexual violence have support as and when they need it.
Alongside our core services of advocacy support through the criminal justice system and counselling, pre-trial therapy and play therapy, we also provide support for parents and caregivers through The Light Project. The Light Project is a mix of 1:1 and group work to support parents and caregivers to help support any parents of children and young people accessing the service.
As well as campaigning, training and challenging myths, stereotypes and rape culture on a regular basis, our work has also seen us developing a prevention programme. The ARCH-ED Prevention Programme is based on research undertaken to ensure our children and young people have awareness and information about important issues such as consent, healthy relationships, pornography and the digital world.
Recently in partnership with Youth Focus and Teesside Mind we launched Hope For Change, a project working with women aged between 16-25 who want to have their voices heard around barriers to mental health support.
You do not need to report to police to access ARCH services.
Referrals can be made via our website www.archteesside.org
We are a victim focused organisation and as such we do not accept referrals for anyone who is subject to an ongoing police investigation for sexual, domestic, or violent offences, or for anyone who may pose a risk of harm to others.”
Our Learning from SARs Adult Sexual Exploitation Briefing will be launching during Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week.
Visit our Learnings Briefing webpage from Tuesday 6th February to access the briefing.
Highlights
We want to hear from you to help us plan our priorities for 2024-25. Below you will find the links to our Annual Survey. Please share widely amongst your networks and where possible include in any internal/external publications. Please encourage colleagues, service users and carers to complete. The survey closes on 31st January!
The Survey has now closed
National Safeguarding Adults Week took place in November and it was a hugely successful event in raising awareness of Safeguarding across Tees. The week was a credit to all professionals who got involved and demonstrated their hard work and commitment to improving the outcomes for adults in Tees. A big thank you and well done to those who took part!
The Board will be planning activity for National Safeguarding Adults Week 2024 and arranging a dedicated Task & Finish Group in the summer months. If you would like to be involved please contact: [email protected]
Just before Christmas, TSAB’s Facebook page reached a fantastic 1000 followers.
Social Media is key tool in sharing key safeguarding messages with both professionals and the general public.
Are you following us on social media? Can you help us to increase our following on Facebook AND Twitter? Give @TeeswideSAB a follow.
Congratulations to Thirteen Housing Group for winning the Innovations Champions Award at the National Safeguarding Adult Board Excellence Awards in November! The award recognised the innovative training developed and delivered by Thirteen, where learning experiences were set up in empty properties with self-neglect and domestic abuse scenarios, to help colleagues identify signs and record safeguarding concerns that they might see when visiting people’s homes. The training has been delivered to over 850 delegates. WELL DONE!
Is something good happening in your organisation around safeguarding adults? Please let us know for a chance to feature in our next Safeguarding Champions Bulletin and/or TSAB Newsletter!
Further Information and Training
If you require this bulletin in a different format please email [email protected].