On Saturday 14th January the young leaders, staff and volunteers from APOW got together for an in-depth training session on safe-guarding.
Rabia Gungor from Child Hope gave up her Saturday afternoon to facilitate the training session and share with us her many years of knowledge, gained from youth work in the UK and overseas – thanks Rabia!
Rabia shaped the training session around Refugee Youth’s own safeguarding policies, which meant it was really specific to what we do, which was great.
We started the session learning about the three goals of safeguarding: Promoting the safety and well-being of young people; Preventing any harm from occurring; and Protecting any young people if they are at risk of harm.
We then discussed the different kinds of harm that young people and vulnerable adults might be at risk from, and learned some of the potential signs and behaviours that might indicate this. Having a diverse group of staff, volunteers and young leaders really helped us think in a very realistic way about how those risks might play out with the young people at APOW.
We got into even more depth and realism in the following session, in which we discussed various different scenarios and how we would deal with them, including making sure everyone was clear what are APOW’s reporting procedures, if this became necessary.
We ended the session over dinner with even more specific discussion of the real-life risks directly related to APOW, and how we should approach them, covering among other things use of social media, and harassment.
Coming out of the session we had some clear actions we can take to improve our policies and make sure everyone understands them, and what that means for how we work and behave together.
It was a serious session – it’s important that everyone involved with APOW, from staff to young people, work together to make sure everyone is safe, so that we can all gain strength and confidence, be ourselves, and make positive change.
But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun! As always, there were a lot of jokes, role-playing and interactive sessions, and lots of discussion. Alessia organised us in the kitchen to produce a delicious Italian meal, which we shared together.
A lovely way to finish our training session!
-Matt, Volunteer
English