On 7^th February, 16 people came to our accessible training session on Safeguarding. It was the second time that we had run a session like this, and we felt it was really important to do it, especially for those who had never done it before.

Our staff always ensure they have up to date safeguarding training, but we felt it was vital to give this training to volunteers and self-advocates from our Link and Ambassadors groups, too. 

Safeguarding is difficult for two reasons:

1. It covers quite emotional and difficult subjects for people to talk about, such as abuse
2. The language used is often quite technical and legal, so can be hard to understand.

The day started looking at the Human Rights Act, The Equalities Act and the Care Act. A lot of information that was not always easy to understand or process but our trainer Anita really helped us all to understand how this related to safeguarding and why we needed to know about it. She very effectively simplified each of the Government Acts which have led to current Safeguarding Policy. She also used really good examples of how safeguarding policies over the years have worked to protect citizens, especially those in residential care and abusive behaviours in the home environment

We learnt what safeguarding is, who might be a vulnerable adult, and the risk factors that might make them vulnerable.

We looked at abuse where it might happen and who might be an abuser.  We also learnt about different types of abuse. We then looked at how we need to respond if someone tells us they are being abused. Individuals were also given time to ask questions and also share their own experiences which enabled them to understand what they were learning in a more personal context. 

This was difficult for some of us to discuss as it brought up experiences and things that had happened to us, but we all agreed what was said in the room stayed in the room and we were all there to support each other. 

We also looked at why some people might not feel able to report abuse and how people they report the abuse too may not feel able to help.  So we then looked at how we need to report our concerns and who is there to help like the Safeguarding team and the Police. 

We suggested a whole lot of behaviours we thought were wrong, some of which we admitted had happened to us. That was hard to hear for many of us.  We finished by looking at what helps us to take care of our wellbeing and enables us to go forward after abuse.

There was lots of opportunity to talk, discuss and ask questions, which our Link members and Ambassadors did not hold back from, as they are very used to voicing their own issues and concerns now!

It was a very long day as there was lots of information.  We learnt a lot.  We have suggested that next time the training is done over 2 days. 

Many thanks to Anita from St Pauls in Balsall Heath who was our trainer.