The 6 Principles Of Adult Safeguarding
Adult safeguarding refers to the protection of vulnerable adults from harm, abuse, neglect, or mistreatment.
To ensure the safety of vulnerable adults, the UK government drew up a list of adult safeguarding principles.
The adult safeguarding principles were initially intended for adult care workers and health workers, but they now apply to any sector that deals with vulnerable adults on a regular basis, including voluntary organisations.
This article will cover the basics of adult safeguarding and will define the six guiding principles set out by the UK government.
What Is Adult Safeguarding?
Adult safeguarding refers to policy and actions that are taken to help protect vulnerable adults from harm, abuse, and exploitation.
Adult safeguarding principles and policy are in place to help reduce the risk of mistreatment by creating more awareness around the topic, providing a framework to support vulnerable adults, and helping workers and volunteers to address any issues that may arise.
The 6 Principles Of Adult Safeguarding
The following principles have been defined by the UK government as guidelines for adult safeguarding, in accordance with the Care Act of 2014.
1. Prevention
The ultimate goal of any adult safeguarding policy should be to prevent the mistreatment of vulnerable adults from happening.
Prevention is best achieved by raising awareness, highlighting the telltale signs of abuse or neglect, and encouraging an atmosphere where adult safeguarding can be openly discussed. Regular and well-structured training should be provided to achieve the goal of prevention.
DBS checks are a vital tool in preventing the mistreatment of vulnerable adults as they are used to highlight any previous crimes committed by individuals that are related to abuse or neglect.
2. Empowerment
If you want to avoid something from happening, the best way is to equip people with the knowledge and tools they need to prevent it. If you empower both the staff and vulnerable adults to speak up about these issues, it will help create an atmosphere and culture where abuse is unlikely to take place.
Empowering staff and victims to speak up about their concerns or to report incidents is another important element of adult safeguarding. Whistleblowing processes should be in place that make it easy for people to report wrongdoing.
3. Proportional Response
If or when an adult safeguarding issue arises, the response should be proportional. In other words, a minor transgression of safeguarding protocol certainly needs to be addressed, but not as harshly as one might with a major break from adult safeguarding legislation, such as signs of abuse or neglect.
The level of response that is appropriate needs to be predetermined and set out clearly in the adult safeguarding policy. This ensures a consistent approach and response to any incidents.
4. Protect The Vulnerable
A society is only strong if it protects the weakest in their midst. Mahatma Gandhi said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable”.
For this reason, adult safeguarding should be set up to provide support and comfort to the people that need it the most. Organisations and businesses need to create the right conditions to protect vulnerable adults from abuse.
5. Collaboration
This refers to making partnerships and forming strong alliances with other organisations, businesses, and local community groups to promote awareness of adult safeguarding and highlighting and preventing abuse.
The government promote a multi-agency approach to adult safeguarding, which involves the creation of joint adult protection plans, sharing of information, and collaboration between different parties such as healthcare providers, social workers, police, care workers, charities, and voluntary organisations.
6. Accountability
Last but not least is the principle of maintaining transparency and openness when dealing with adult safeguarding issues and practices. In other words, there should be no covering up of problems and every person that works with vulnerable adults should be willing to have their actions held up to scrutiny.
Summary
Adult safeguarding is an important part of governmental policy as it helps to protect some of the most vulnerable people in society. That’s why the government set out a list of guiding principles to help ensure that vulnerable adults are protected from harm, abuse, and exploitation.
The principles are: prevention, empowerment, proportional response, protection of the vulnerable, collaboration or partnership, and accountability.
DBS checks are an important part of adult safeguarding and are used by any organisations that engage in “regulated activities” as defined by the DBS. To find out more about DBS checks or ask any other questions related to adult safeguarding, get in touch with one of our experts today.
