Safeguarding and Prevent Policy

Policy Principle

iungo Solutions Limited (“iungo”) is a new generation Digital & Green Skills training provider developing and delivering employer-led immersive and experiential learning programmes for priority growth sectors. provides accredited and skills-based training courses, workshops and learning design services.

We are cognisant of our statutory obligations and responsibility to promote the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults we interact with through our business activities and specifically in the provision of our Training Solutions.

The purpose of this policy is to illustrate iungo’s approach to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults, and the expectations that we hold of our employees, contractors, volunteers, and partner organisations. iungo Solutions is committed to protecting Young People and Vulnerable Adults from abuse, exploitation, bullying, neglect, radicalisation, extremism and self-harm throughout its training programs both funded and non-funded.

Policy Scope

This scope of this policy includes all interactions with children, young people and vulnerable adults that take place during iungo business activities, whether in person or virtually, and via any method of communication.

This policy applies to iungo Solutions, its employees, contractors, volunteers, and individuals from partner organisations who are in direct contact with children, young people, and vulnerable adults.

Digital Safety and Online Harassment

iungo strives to maintain an inclusive learning environment by providing online and hybrid learning options. Digital safety is integrated into the Policy scope to address modern threats such as cyberbullying, online exploitation, and image-based abuse across all virtual learning environments including Google Meet and Google Classroom. 

Legislative Framework

iungo Solutions operates across both England and Wales and is committed to abiding by the specific statutory requirements of each nation. Our practices seek to promote fairness and social justice irrespective of the specific legislative bearing.

Safeguarding Adults

• In England: We abide by the Care Act 2014, which defines “Adults at Risk” and mandates Section 42 enquiries for individuals with care and support needs who are unable to protect themselves from abuse.
  
• In Wales: We abide by the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, which introduces a “Duty to Report” for any partner organisation that has reasonable cause to suspect an adult is at risk.

Safeguarding Children & Young People

• In England: We follow the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and Working Together to Safeguard Children.
  
• In Wales: We follow Keeping Learners Safe (2021) and the All Wales Child Protection Procedures to ensure the welfare of participants under 18.

National UK Legislation

Regardless of location, iungo Solutions maintains compliance with the following overarching UK Acts:

• The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015: Governing our “Prevent Duty” to identify and protect participants at risk of radicalisation.
  
• The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012: Guiding our use of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
  
• The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006: Defining regulated activities and the barring of unsuitable individuals from working with vulnerable populations.
  
• The Data Protection Act 2018 (UK GDPR): Ensuring all safeguarding data is kept strictly confidential and protected.

With reference to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, our practices seek to promote fairness and social justice in all workplace and learning scenarios irrespective of the bearing of this legislative framework. This includes recognising the needs of children, young people, adults at risk, and those with additional needs, including those induced by communication barriers, disability, neurodiversity, cultural predispositions or discrimination.

Policy Commitments

With respect to our commitment to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults we will:

• Listen to and show respect for children, young people, and vulnerable adults
  
• Appoint a nominated Safeguarding Lead to hold the organisation to account for safeguarding arrangements. 
• Appoint two Designated Safeguarding Officers to support the safeguarding processes.
  
• Maintain detailed safeguarding and child protection procedures.
  
• Ensure all employees, contractors, and volunteers understand and follow the safeguarding and child protection procedures.
  
• Ensure children, young people and their families, and vulnerable adults know about the organisation’s Safeguarding Policy and what to do if they have a concern.
  
• Build a safeguarding culture where employees, contractors, and volunteers know how they are expected to behave and feel comfortable about sharing concerns.

Definitions

To ensure consistent application of this policy across all training programs, the following definitions apply:

• Adult at Risk (formerly Vulnerable Adult): An individual aged 18 or over who has needs for care and support (whether or not the local authority is meeting any of those needs), is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect, and as a result of those needs is unable to protect themselves against the abuse or neglect or the risk of it.
  
• Child/Young Person: For the purposes of this policy, a child is defined as anyone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday. “Young Person” typically refers to those aged 16–17 who may have transitioned into adult learning environments but still fall under child protection legislation.
  
• Care and Support Needs: Needs arising from a physical or mental impairment or illness. This includes, but is not limited to, disabilities, neurodiversity, or conditions induced by communication barriers.
  
• Abuse and Neglect: Forms of maltreatment that can be physical, sexual, emotional, financial, or organisational. This also includes modern slavery, domestic abuse, and self-neglect. See Section 5.1 for further information.
  
• Radicalisation: The process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism which lead to terrorism.
  
• Extremism: Vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
  
• Mental Capacity: The ability of an individual to make a specific decision at the time it needs to be made. In accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005, an adult must be assumed to have capacity unless it is established otherwise.
  
• Duty of Care: The legal and moral obligation of iungo Solutions to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety and well-being of all participants, contractors, and employees, regardless of whether they meet the statutory definition of an “Adult at Risk”.
  
• Informed Consent: A voluntary agreement made by an individual who has the capacity to understand the implications of a decision, such as consenting to a police report or a referral to external support services.

Recognised Forms of Abuse

Category	Description & Examples
Physical Abuse	Assault, hitting, slapping, pushing, misuse of medication, unauthorised restraint, or inappropriate physical sanctions.
Sexual Abuse	Rape, sexual assault, indecent exposure, sexual harassment, or being forced to look at pornography or witness sexual acts without consent.
Psychological/Emotional Abuse	Threats of harm or abandonment, humiliation, blaming, controlling, intimidation, coercion, harassment, verbal abuse, cyberbullying, and isolation.
Financial or Material Abuse	Theft, fraud, internet scamming, coercion regarding an adult’s financial affairs (wills, property, inheritance), or misuse of benefits/possessions.
Modern Slavery	Encompasses slavery, human trafficking, forced labour, and domestic servitude. Traffickers use coercion and deception to force individuals into a life of abuse.
Discriminatory Abuse	Forms of harassment, slurs, or unfair treatment because of protected characteristics (e.g., race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, or religion)
Organisational or Institutional Abuse	Neglect or poor care practice within an institution (hospital, care home) or in relation to care provided in one’s own home. This can be a one-off incident or ongoing.
Neglect or Acts of Omission	Failure to provide medical or physical care needs, withholding the necessities of life (medication, food, heating), or ignoring emotional needs.
Self-Neglect	A wide range of behaviour where an individual neglects their own personal hygiene, health, or surroundings. This includes behaviour such as hoarding.
Domestic Abuse	Incidents or patterns of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence, or abuse between those aged 16+ who are personally connected (partners or family).

Although not a statutory safeguarding requirement, iungo Solutions will record and respond to non-statutory safeguarding concerns (e.g. above forms of abuse affecting adults not at risk), wellbeing concerns including mental health, and self harm, and other concerns including potential criminal exploitation, peer-on-peer abuse, and any other additional support requirements observed.

Policy Commitments

With respect to our commitment to safeguarding children, young people and adults at risk we will:

• Listen to and show respect for children, young people, and adults at risk
  
• Appoint a nominated Safeguarding Lead to hold the organisation to account for safeguarding arrangements.
  
• Appoint a minimum of two Designated Safeguarding Officers to support the safeguarding processes.
  
• Maintain detailed safeguarding and child protection procedures.
  
• Ensure all employees, contractors, and volunteers understand and follow the safeguarding and child protection procedures.
  
• Ensure children, young people and their families, and adults at risk know about the organisation’s Safeguarding Policy and what to do if they have a concern.
  
• Build a safeguarding culture where employees, contractors, and volunteers know how they are expected to behave and feel comfortable about sharing concerns.

Assessing Risk

We will assess the risk to children, young people, and adults at risk by conducting the following:

• Conduct due diligence and regular audits on partners and clients with specific reference to governance arrangements, equal opportunities, modern slavery and safeguarding policies.
  
• Conduct a barriers assessment during onboarding to identify vulnerable groups, additional needs, and safeguarding concerns.
  
• Carry out a pre-delivery site visit and health and safety assessment when conducting activities on client or partner property.
  
• Request full disclosure from the client or partner with respect to safeguarding concerns for individuals referred to iungo.
  
• Uphold our obligations in our Data Protection Policy and seek permission from individuals to capture or utilise media that may reveal their identity.

Suitability of Representatives

We will ensure the suitability of iungo representatives to interact with children, young people, and adults at risk by undertaking the following actions.

• Conduct thorough background checks on individual representatives and thorough due diligence for partner organisations and representatives
  
• Conduct and maintain DBS checks for individuals.
  
• Upholding our Complaints Procedure which includes confidential reporting of safeguarding issues via the reporting process.

• Provide training to key employees and all employees who interact with children, young people, and adults at risk on at least an annual basis.

Safeguarding Lead and Officers Responsibilities

The Designated Safeguarding Lead and Officers will Investigate, improve, monitor and review company policies and procedures.

• Take action on referrals from both internal and external sources.
  
• Make decisions about referrals to the Social Services Child Protection Team.
  
• Endeavour to keep up to date with all Child/Adult at Risk Protection legislation.
  
• Chair case discussions if appropriate.
  
• Collect all necessary data and ensure it is kept strictly confidential and protected by password access, stored under lock and key.
  
• Determine if an internal investigation is required and liaise with Social Services and the Police to avoid compromising any official investigation.
  
• Liaise with the Directors and or senior manager of the delivery partner to ensure all necessary support and guidance is available as appropriate.

Extremism and Radicalisation

The Prevent Duty recognises that young people can be vulnerable to extremist influences; as a result, we acknowledge that our participants (and employees) may be at risk of radicalisation.

Employees have a responsibility to recognise this potential risk and to identify participants that may be at risk of harm from radicalisation. We have a Prevent Strategy in line with the requirements placed upon us under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (2015). 

Our Designated Prevent Officers are the Designated Safeguarding Officers. The process for identifying and responding to concerns is contained within the Prevent Strategy (Appendix A).

Recruitment and Selection

iungo Solutions have established policies and procedures for the recruitment, selection and vetting of employees and acquisition of applicants for learning programmes. 

Refer to POL-0028 Pre-Employment Screening and SOP-0004 Applicant Eligibility for further information.

All managers are required to undertake annual refresher training on Safer Recruitment Practices.

Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing is an important aspect of safeguarding. Working with children, young people and adults inadvertently places employees in a position of power. To gain trust and respect it is essential that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure this authority is exercised responsibly. 

There may be situations when employees have genuine concerns about the conduct or wrongdoing of someone within the organisation. Everyone within the organisation has the right and the responsibility to raise concerns about the behaviour of employees, representatives or participants, which may be harmful to those in their care  and will receive appropriate support when doing so. 

Employees, representatives, participants and vulnerable persons alike are encouraged to share any concerns they may have so that problems can be identified, dealt with and resolved quickly without prejudice to their own position.
Refer to POL-0024 Whistleblowing for further information.

Handling Safeguarding Concerns

We will ensure that we appropriately and sensitively handle all safeguarding concerns by enacting the following.

• Maintain a written procedure for accepting, handling, investigating, and reporting safeguarding concerns raised by any party in the course of iungo’s work.
  
• Appoint a Designated Safeguarding Officer to investigate safeguarding and prevent concerns.
  
• Raising awareness of safeguarding issues amongst staff, signs of abuse and required responses by giving appropriate training.
  
• Recognise and respond to institutional safeguarding concerns that may be apparent within our own organisation or that of our partners and clients.

The detailed procedure is outlined in the Safeguarding Procedure.

Consent

iungo respects the autonomy of adults; external referrals will only be made without consent if a life is at risk or others are endangered.

Document Approval

Authorising Name:	Jessica Leigh Jones MBE
Position:	Group CEO
Signature:
Document Version:	1.4
Date of Release:	27/02/2023
Date Updated:	21/11/2025
Date of Next Review:	01/11/2026
Document Classification:	Public