Digital Safeguarding Policy & Procedure

Digital safeguarding policy

Published: 28 January 2025

Version: 1

Somers Town Space (STS) Community Interest Company run the People’s Museum Somers Town and welcome visitors of all ages and abilities. As an organisation, Somers Town Space Community Interest Company will focus on promoting positive experiences, engaging with the local community, its history and heritage. We will ensure this happens in a safe and supportive environment, including the online environment. We will give equal priority to keeping all children, young people, and adults safe regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

Policy aims and purpose

Digital safeguarding is how we help everyone involved with STS stay safe online. We follow the same safeguarding principles offline and online, but recognise that some types of harm can happen only, or mostly, online.

This policy sets out our commitment to digital safeguarding and the different types of online harms, our expectations, and how we help our visitors, volunteers and staff stay safe online.

This policy applies to all STS volunteers and all staff employed by STS whether permanent, fixed term or contracted. It covers all STS activities at any level which take place online. These include:

Any activities that take place over internet STS provides.
Any STS activities that take place on non-STS affiliated digital platforms, like Facebook or Zoom, or devices, like mobile phones or computers.
It also applies to everyone who uses our websites, digital platforms and social media.

You must follow this policy and its procedure, and read them alongside our safeguarding policy and procedure.

If you have a safeguarding concern – offline or online – you must report it within 24 hours (or sooner if it’s an emergency) to the safeguarding lead, Esther Leslie, or one of our other directors, Steve McCarthy or Diana Foster.

Definitions

Visitor – Anyone engaging with STS activities and content, including visitors to the People’s Museum, individuals attending walking tours or other offsite activities, and individuals engaging with STS digitally.

Volunteer – anyone who gives their time to STS without being paid, including volunteers working directly with visitors and volunteers with no direct contact.

Digital platforms – includes social media, websites, apps and online software.

Social media – any digital communications that allows you to communicate with more than one person at a time, like Facebook, X, Whatsapp or Instagram. Email can be considered to be social media, for example a group email chain.

Social media channels – includes both our official and volunteer social media channels, like a Facebook page.

Staff – anyone employed by STS whether permanent, fixed term or contracted.

Policy statement

STS’s commitment to digital safeguarding

We’re committed to safeguarding everyone involved with STS. This includes people who use our digital services and social media channels.

We follow the same safeguarding principles for STS’s activities offline and online. This policy relates closely to our safeguarding policy and managing information policy.

We recognise and respond to digital safeguarding concerns including but not limited to:

Online abuse – including online bullying, online harassment, cyberstalking, and discrimination and abuse on the grounds of protected characteristics.
Online exploitation – including sexual exploitation and online grooming.
Online harms – including the promotion of self-harm, suicide and eating disorders, and the sharing of illegal and inappropriate imagery.
Specialist areas – including radicalisation.
Other harms including disinformation and misinformation, hoaxes, hacking, oversharing of personal information, impersonation and harmful online challenges.

You don’t have to be certain about a concern, so if you think someone is at risk of any of these harms, and if in doubt, you must report it.

Expectations

STS expects all volunteers, staff and visitors to:

Always report a safeguarding concern, offline or online, even if you aren’t sure.
Respond to online incidents in the same way as other safeguarding incidents. This could be something that happens at a unit meeting, or a member raising an issue at an online meeting.
Follow the digital safeguarding procedure, alongside our safeguarding policy.
Recognise the types of online harms and the risks they have.
Make every effort to ensure staff and volunteers understand why and how to stay safe online.
Make sure you have the correct permissions in place before taking and using photographs or recording. Our photography/filming consent form should be filled out for interviews and one-off photography. At events a sign notifying attendees of filming and photography must be posted, informing visitors of how to opt-out.
Parent or carer permission must be obtained for photography or recording of anyone under the age of 18.
Never contact a volunteer under 16 without permission from their parent or carer. This applies even if they contacted you first, unless it’s an emergency.
Follow STS’s code of conduct online as you would offline.
Make sure you set up and use social media accounts responsibly. See our digital safeguarding procedure for more information.
Make sure you do everything possible to stop access to illegal or inappropriate content on STS devices or devices used for STS activities. For example, using parental controls.

How STS helps our members, volunteers and activities stay safe online

Our safeguarding lead and directors lead digital safeguarding and make sure we’re obeying the law and using best practice.
The safeguarding lead and directors are on hand to support all our members, volunteers, and staff. You can contact them at
We make sure our projects, activities, programmes and campaigns support all of our visitors, volunteers and staff to stay safe online.
We aim to incorporate best practice in digital safeguarding in everything we do.
We help our volunteers to support visitors in being effective online.
We take action in line with best practice when a digital safeguarding incident happens.
We support and train volunteers and staff in digital safeguarding.
We risk-assess all our projects, initiatives, programmes, activities, services and campaigns to make sure digital safeguards are in place.
We support volunteers and staff using our safeguarding structure. We use our safeguarding procedure to manage allegations against volunteers.
Staying safe is our priority but we can’t resolve every issue. Some may be the service provider or user’s responsibility.

Digital Safeguarding Procedure

Safeguarding online

What do I need to do?

You need to follow the same safeguarding principles as you would normally. Just because an allegation, concern or disclosure is about something online doesn’t mean it’s any less serious or important. If you’re not sure whether something is a concern, it’s always better to report it.

What’s the difference between safeguarding and digital safeguarding?

Digital safeguarding covers any type of safeguarding concern which happens online or involves technology. Most types of abuse or harm can happen online or in-person, like bullying and grooming. Other types of harm primarily take place online, like sexting or the pressure or coercion to share sexual images.

We don’t expect you to be an expert in different types of online harm. And you don’t have to be certain about a concern before you get in touch with us about an issue.

Digital safeguarding also means thinking about the information you’re sharing online about yourself and others. Be aware of online scams and make sure you know who can see what you’re sharing or doing online.

When sharing or collecting personal data about young visitors and volunteers, make sure only parents and carers can see it. You might also want to think about whether your messages are encrypted, especially when sharing something like bank details. Encryption makes messages more secure and less likely someone can get access to the information who shouldn’t. WhatsApp and Facebook messenger use encryption, but Facebook groups don’t.

Communicating with young volunteers online

Some of those who volunteer with STS are under 18, including work experience students. Older volunteers and staff must follow these rules for digital communication with young volunteers.

Avoid messaging 1-to-1 with volunteers under the age of 18, unless it’s an emergency. You can find more guidance on this below.
Make sure you’re using an age-appropriate platform. Check the terms and conditions of the platform if you’re not certain.
Follow our safeguarding policy.
Follow the specific rules for each age group below.

Communicating with young volunteers in an emergency

You must avoid communicating 1-to-1 with young volunteers online, including during virtual meetings, but there may be times when a young volunteer contacts you privately and you need to reply.

If they’ve contacted you on social media, by email, or by text you should always reply to let them know you’ve received their message. But copy someone else into your reply and explain that private contact is not allowed between staff/adult volunteers and young volunteers. If it’s not possible to include someone else in your response, use a different contact method instead.

If a young volunteer phones you, answer the phone to find out why they’re calling. It could be an emergency so it’s important not to ignore the call. If they just wanted to let you know they’re running late, thank them for letting you know and end the call. If they want to have a longer conversation about something, rearrange the call so another volunteer or staff member can also take part. Or arrange to meet in person with another volunteer or staff member at the People’s Museum.

In an emergency it’s more important to respond to this than to avoid 1-to-1 contact.

After any 1-to-1 communication with a young volunteer, you must let another volunteer or member of staff know what happened straightaway. If you can, it’s a good idea to download or screenshot an online conversation and share this as well.

If a young volunteer repeatedly contacts volunteers or staff privately you may need to raise this with their parent or carer. You must also let a director know. If you have any safeguarding concerns about the young volunteer, follow our safeguarding procedure and contact a director.

Social media and young volunteers

You mustn’t add volunteers under 18 or allow them to follow you on your personal social media accounts, unless you already know them outside of STS.

If you want to use social media to communicate with young volunteers you could either use an STS specific account instead of your personal one, or use a platform which allows group messaging without needing to follow each other, like a Facebook group or Instagram group chat.

If a young volunteer tries to add or follow you on your personal social media account, let them know you’re not allowed to accept their request. You could speak to them in person at the People’s Museum to let them know. Or send them a message with another staff member or volunteer copied in.

If they keep trying to add or follow you, you may need to raise this with their parent or carer. Speak to a director for advice if you’re not sure how to handle this conversation. If you have any safeguarding concerns about the young volunteer, follow our safeguarding procedure and contact a director.

Digital devices in meetings and at events

If you’re using devices as part of your in-person meetings or at events, make sure young volunteers or visitors won’t be able to view anything illegal or inappropriate.

Supervise young volunteers and visitors in an age-appropriate way when they’re online. If a young person will be using STS devices, consider using safety and security settings, like parental controls, when setting up. These will help protect children from inappropriate content online. You can find guides for setting up parental controls on lots of different devices on the internet matters website.

Young volunteers should be made aware that they need to follow the same rules as adult volunteers. They must only take or share images if photo permissions allow this, and must follow our procedure on taking and sharing photos and videos.

They should also use social media responsibly and safely, within the community guidelines and terms and conditions of the platform.

Virtual meetings

You must have at least 2 adults present throughout the call.

At least 1 adult volunteer or staff member must be DBS checked. Volunteers or members of staff in roles that require them must have a current valid DBS check. Any volunteer or member of staff who doesn’t need a disclosure check for their role, or hasn’t completed one yet, must be supervised by someone with a current valid disclosure check.

Avoid 1-to-1 contact online between older volunteers or members of staff and young volunteers.

You also need to complete a virtual meeting checklist and risk assessment (PDF) before running online meetings.

Get parent or carer permission

You’ll need to get written permission from parents or carers for young volunteers to join virtual meetings.

Always contact parents and carers to talk through your plans for online meetings. Explain how you’ll be meeting and how often.

Running safe meetings online

There’s lots to think about when it comes to virtual or online meetings.

When planning or setting up the meetings:

Decide on a platform that will work best for your meeting. Check the terms and conditions, including age requirements, as many are changing their features regularly.
Set up your account so that each meeting has a unique passcode, and attendees are put into a virtual waiting room before joining.
Make sure the room you’re in is suitable for young volunteers to see.
If you’re joining a virtual meeting from home and have other people around, make sure they’re dressed appropriately and know how to behave when you’re talking to young volunteers.

Some platforms allow direct messaging or group chats. Make sure all volunteers know they can raise any worries with a director.

Using social media

Social media is a great tool for keeping in touch with other volunteers and staff, and letting people know about all the great stuff we do at STS.

We want our presence on social media to reflect our values. So when interacting with our official social media accounts you need to follow our community guidelines.

You can find our rules on communicating with young volunteers on social media above.

Setting up STS social media pages or accounts

Ask permission from the directors before setting up a social media page or account which represents, or is associated with any part of STS. You will also need to follow some basic principles to make sure you’re being a good ambassador for STS:

Report any safeguarding concerns in line with our safeguarding policy.
Keep everyone’s data safe by following our data protection policy.
Follow the platform’s community guidelines and terms and conditions, including on age restrictions.
Include a short description of what the account is for and who it represents. For example, ‘This is the X account for the People’s Museum Histories of Health research group. The views expressed here are those of the research group’.
Make sure you use the most appropriate privacy settings for the account.
If you use social media to discuss any personal information about a young volunteer, make sure to do so in a private communication with the parent or carer.

Running social media accounts

There’s lots to think about when it comes to running social media accounts day to day.

Talk with STS directors and staff and decide:

Who will have access to the account, and what level of access will they have? You should make sure more than one person has full moderator access in case something goes wrong, and so that you can share responsibility and support each other.
Who will post, and what will you post about? Are there any emotive topics you’ll avoid? Content must always be relevant to STS, and in keeping with our values.
Will you use social media to engage in anything political? If there’s an election coming up, you’ll need to take extra care as there are regulations about campaigning and political activities by charities. You can find out more in our general election guidance.
How often will you post, or check the account for comments and messages?
Who will delete posts, and when?
How will you deal with comments from other users?

Sharing photos and videos on social media

Sharing photos, videos and other images on your guiding social media is a great way to show what STS is all about. But always check you have the right permissions before posting.

You can only share images of young volunteers with parent/carer permission.

You mustn’t post images of young volunteers taken in your volunteering role on your personal Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), or other social media.

Your personal social media

As a volunteer, you must follow our code of conduct. So be aware of what you say and how you say it when you’re online. Think about whether your posts and comments are appropriate, and in keeping with our values and expectations.

If you’re clearly seen to be part of STS on your social media (for example, tagging STS accounts in your profile), you must avoid posting party political messages during any election period.

Our photo permission options don’t include sharing images or videos on personal social media. This means you mustn’t post images or videos of volunteers or members of the public taken in your volunteering/staff role on your personal social media.

You mustn’t knowingly add or follow volunteers or visitors under 18 or allow them to follow you on your personal social media accounts, unless you already know them outside of STS. You can decide whether to add or follow adult volunteers or visitors on your personal accounts.

And remember that anything you post on social media can easily be shared, even if your account is set to private.

Responding to online incidents

If something goes wrong online or involving social media, escalate any issues to your commissioner as soon as possible. They can help you decide on the most appropriate action to take. This might involve deleting posts or comments, reporting behaviour to the social media platform, or reporting a concern to the Safeguarding Lead.

Some possible issues you might face include:

Complaints and criticism. How would you normally handle this offline? Can you do it in the same way?

Abusive messages. Sending abusive messages online is unacceptable behaviour, and receiving these messages can be distressing and overwhelming. If anyone involved in STS is sending abusive messages, get in touch with the Safeguarding Lead. Consider blocking the person sending the messages or asking another volunteer to look after the account temporarily.

Hacking. Do you have another way to contact people to let them know if someone has hacked into your account? You don’t want anyone to click on a link that downloads a virus, pay money, or share personal information with a stranger.

Fake accounts or impersonation. Do you have a way to check that the person is who they say they are? Could you check with a parent or carer in another way before you add them to a private group?

After an incident, you should talk to your unit team, local commissioner, or area team about whether the steps you took were the right ones. Would you do anything differently if it happens again?

What do I do if…

I have a concern about a young member’s or volunteer’s behaviour, or what they may have been exposed to online?

If you have any concerns, contact our safeguarding lead for advice and support. You don’t have to be sure about the concern or think it’s serious to get in touch.

If a volunteer’s behaviour online isn’t in line with our code of conduct, this may impact on their membership.

A volunteer’s posts on social media make me concerned about their safety or wellbeing.

If you know the volunteer personally you might feel comfortable sending them a message to make sure they’re okay or to offer your support. If you’re not comfortable doing this or it isn’t appropriate, you should contact their parent or carer or teacherto raise your concerns. If you think they may be at an immediate risk of harm, contact the emergency services. And then let our safeguarding lead know you’ve done this. Read more about how and when to report concerns in our safeguarding procedure.

If you don’t know the volunteer personally, you should contact our safeguarding lead to report your concerns. It may help us to identify them if you can send a screenshot of the social media posts and as much information about the volunteer as possible.

A volunteer contacts me privately and I’m worried about their safety or wellbeing.

Respond to the volunteer, even if you’re not sure what to say. It’s important they don’t feel ignored or alone. If it’s appropriate, ask if you can speak to their commissioner or the safeguarding lead on their behalf.

If you believe they may be at an immediate risk of harm, contact the emergency services. And then let our safeguarding lead know you’ve done this. Read more about how and when to report concerns in our safeguarding procedure.

I’m a young volunteer with a concern about myself or someone else.

Speak to an adult you trust if you can. This could be your parent or carer or teacher. They can help you find the right information and support.

If you don’t feel able to talk to anyone you know about your concern, you can contact a specialist organisation, like Childline. They may be able to support you or give you the information you’re looking for. You can find more organisations on our support organisations page.

A young member shares that someone has posted photos of them online.

Follow our safeguarding advice on handling disclosures. And contact our HQ safeguarding team to report the concern.

I have a concern about someone being bullied online.

It’s important to take concerns about bullying seriously, whether the behaviour is taking place in person or online. Our anti-bullying and harassment procedure explains how you should respond to different types of bullying.

I may have caused or seen a data breach or other data protection issue online.

Follow our managing information procedure on reporting a data breach. Or contact our data protection team for advice.

A young member I have an existing relationship with outside of STS follows me on social media.

If you already have a relationship with a young volunteer outside of STS, for example a niece, granddaughter or family friend, we don’t expect you to stop following each other on social media. But it’s still a good idea to check the age restrictions for the platform, and for their parent or carer to know you’re connected on social media. You must not allow other young members to add or follow you on social media.