Shared Lives Plus
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Our Safeguarding Policy

Shared Lives Plus is a UK membership charity for more than 6,000 Shared Lives carers, 150 shared lives schemes and a growing network of over 25 local Homeshare organisations.

Shared Lives is a care and support service, which is for people aged 16+ who want to live independently in their community with the support of a family and community network. It is an alternative to supported living or residential care.

Homeshare brings together people with spare rooms with people who are happy to chat and lend a hand around the house in return for affordable, sociable accommodation. Together, Householders and Homesharers share home life, time, skills, and experience.

Our vision for both of our programmes is a kinder, stronger society built on sharing our lives and our homes.

We are committed to ensuring that all those that come into contact with us, or our work, are effectively safeguarded. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, and we expect all those who work for us or with us to share this commitment. This policy was developed with the support of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), a national charity and leading centre of expertise on adult and children’s safeguarding.

As part of this, SHARED LIVES PLUS will:

  • Promote safety and wellbeing in all our work and with all those we work with
  • Ensure appropriate action is taken in the event of incidents/concerns of abuse
  • Ensure support is provided to the individual/s who raise or disclose a concern
  • Ensure that confidential, detailed, and accurate records of safeguarding concerns are maintained and securely stored
  • Ensure that robust safeguarding arrangements and procedures are in operation
  • Ensure that the safeguarding lead has received appropriate training.

Policy Scope and Purpose

As part of our work, SHARED LIVES PLUS recognise that, whilst we do not provide care services directly ourselves, we may come into contact with adults with care and support needs in a variety of ways: through our delivery of Homeshare (which is not a form of social care but does involve people sharing a living space with one another), members and partners, support of the sector and through direct contact with us from members of the public. The purpose and scope of this policy is therefore threefold:

  1. To safeguard adults with care and support needs who are involved in a Shared Lives or Homeshare arrangement.
  2. To respond appropriately to concerns about an adult with care and support needs that we may come into contact with.
  3. To provide staff with guidance and procedures that they should adopt when working with adults with care and support needs if it is suspected that they may be experiencing, or be at risk of, abuse or neglect (including concerns raised through direct contact with Shared Lives Plus.

This policy is the overarching policy for the organisation and takes precedence over the safeguarding framework of Homeshare UK, therefore applies to all staff, volunteers and trustees working for Shared Lives Plus. We similarly expect organisations that work with Shared Lives Plus, either in our membership or in partnerships to uphold the same level of commitment and to follow the procedures set out in this policy.

 

Download this policy document below

Policy last updated: January 2023

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