The importance of safeguarding, ensuring the safety and protection of all who attend Foundation projects, is highlighted during the interview process for prospective members of staff, through the DBS and safer recruitment process prior to starting work, and then on a regular basis whatever their day-to-day involvement at Molineux or across the city.
In truth, having a robust safeguarding process which is open and works successfully isn’t even something which Foundation staff are keen to promote too heavily, believing it to be a minimum standard of their operational delivery.
But equally they are pleased to report that the audit report for the 2020/21 season, conducted by Barnardo’s on behalf of the Premier League, was very positive in terms of the club’s safeguarding policies and procedures, and actually came out as one of the best in the country.
“Being a Foundation which delivers projects in the local community, the importance of safeguarding is embedded into us on a day-to-day basis,” explains Lee Smith, senior manager (operations), who has the overall responsibility for safeguarding within Wolves Foundation.
“Our focus is always on doing the right thing, and reporting even the smallest issue because the importance of that low level reporting sometimes means we ae able to build larger pictures.
“The importance of safeguarding is drilled into our football coaches and all members of staff right from the interview process onwards, and as an example the FA Level 1 qualification includes a safeguarding course.
“As the person with overall responsibility for safeguarding within the Foundation, my job is made a lot easier because of how much it is embedded into our working environment.
“And to be honest it’s not something we want to shout about too much or take credit for as it should be the bare minimum requirement for what we do.
“We want there to be an expectancy for anyone attending a Foundation session, or for parents sending their children, to know that there is the highest level of professionalism and safeguarding provision in place.
“I think what is probably the most positive feature of the Premier League audit report is that it shows that people can be comfortable in the procedures we have in place throughout the Foundation.”
The 30-page report covers a wide range of areas across safeguarding provision, and was based on interviews with different staff both from the Foundation and Wolves and focus groups with managers with safeguarding responsibilities, representatives from girls and women’s football, adults at risk groups and other areas including mental health support and inclusion.
Categories covered in the report include leadership, governance and culture; roles and responsibilities; prevention; education and empowering; protection; working together and possessing a listening culture.
Recommendations follow a traffic light system, with green indicating a meeting of the standards with no action required, amber a partial meeting of the standard with recommendation for improvement and red meaning a section of a standard has not been met.
There wasn’t a single red recommendation contained within the report with the vast majority in green, and the amber gradings covered areas the Foundation were already assessing and planning to improve.
“It was actually a really positive report and I would like to say a huge ‘well done’ to all of the staff for making sure we do everything possible to protect those taking part in our projects,” Lee adds.
Lee works closely with Wolves Head of Safeguarding Lisa Carter, thus keeping an open line of communication between Foundation and club and also being able to ensure the charity is continuing to operate at a high level and within all the necessary regulations.
“I am able to have regular catch-ups with Lisa and she is always there to help and advise so while our work is generally aimed at prevention, if anything serious does ever happen we know we are ready,” he added.
“We will sometimes produce policies which Lisa can check – for example during lockdown I put together a lone working policy – and it is great for us to know that Lisa is there and is such a big help to the Foundation.”
That close working relationship was one of the many positive factors mentioned in the summary of the report, which outlined that there had been ‘considerable improvement’ made by the Foundation since the previous audit two years earlier.
‘The Foundation has made excellent progress since the 2018/19 season audit,’ states the summary.
‘There is a strong safeguarding culture which is embraced by the staff and this is complemented by the values of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
‘Safeguarding is seen as fundamental to all activity and evidence was seen of this from project initiation, through activities and in the quality assuring and reviewing of projects.
‘The involvement and feedback from stakeholders is valued and there are a number of examples from participants who were keen to stress the positive and life-changing impact of the support offered by the Foundation.’
To find out more about Wolves Foundation and it’s commitment to the community visit: https://www.wolves.co.uk/foundation/ or follow @wwfcfoundation on social media for regular updates.
