Safeguarding Adults Week is a time to come together to raise awareness of important safeguarding issues. The aim is to highlight safeguarding key issues, facilitate conversations and to raise awareness of safeguarding best practice so we can all be better together.

The focus and hope of the week is to enable more people to feel confident in recognising signs of abuse and neglect and recording and reporting safeguarding concerns.

Watch this short video by the Ann Craft Trust to learn more about what safeguarding is.

Safeguarding Adults Week 2021 Theme – ‘Creating Safer Cultures’

The theme for Safeguarding Adults Week 2021 is ‘Creating Safer Cultures’.

Each day will focus on a specific topic to facilitate conversations around the theme of creating safer cultures.

As part of the week, the Ann Craft Trust are also hosting their ‘Grooming and Exploitation: Opening Eyes and Minds Conference’ on Thursday 18 November. Bookings for the conference are now open!

What is meant by Safer Cultures?

Promoting safer cultures is all about how organisations and individuals can take steps to minimise harm occurring in the first instance, whilst simultaneously ensuring correct policies and procedures are in place so that safeguarding concerns that are raised, are recognised and responded to effectively.

What do Safer Cultures Look Like? 

• Listening- organisations should listen to members and create an environment where people’s concerns are listened to and addressed appropriately (be that service users, participants, volunteers or employees). Individuals should feel confident about how to respond to, report and refer any safeguarding concerns either within their organisation or community.
• Leading– organisations should ensure they have the correct policies and procedures in place to minimise the risk of harm and to respond effectively should concerns be raised. This could include having a detailed safeguarding policy and ensuring that staff and volunteers receive regular safeguarding training.
• Learning- it is important that organisations, and individuals within them, take the time to learn from safeguarding incidents and reflect on what actions could be altered in the future to facilitate best practice and minimise the risk of harm.

Support Safeguarding Adults Week in 5 Steps!

1. Sign up to receive your free Safeguarding Adults Week resources from the Ann Craft Trust! We’ll email you free electronic resources throughout the year.
2. Book onto one of the Ann Craft Trust e-learning courses, or the Ann Craft Trust Grooming and Exploitation Conference, to develop your safeguarding knowledge.
3. Share the Ann Craft Trust free podcasts, posters and resources within your organisation, or create your own, to raise awareness of safeguarding issues.
4. Use the hashtag #SafeguardingAdultsWeek on social media to tell the online community about your safeguarding initiatives.
5. Learn how to recognise the signs of abuse and how to record and report your concerns.