Policy Development

Policy Development

Guardian Saints have provided a suite of policy documents to a number of Independent Fostering Agencies covering Online Safety. This has now been updated to align with Ofsted’s revised guidance for inspectors ‘Inspecting Independent Fostering Agencies’ published in February 2016, with particular reference to Annex L. 

The policy suite is available on a subscription basis to include updates when revisions of guidance and/or practice are published in the future. Ofsted intend to consult on the entire framework in the ’summer’, so changes are inevitable. Below is some additional information regarding what we provide.
"TACT are happy to endorse the Guardian Saints online policy suite as we know that Guardian Saints, as another not-for-profit organisation, have the safety and wellbeing of children at their core, as do TACT. It also makes sense for us, as a child centred charity who are not 100% computer savvy, to trust the expertise of another organisation in creating, and continuing to update, our policies in respect of internet safety in order to ensure we meet the required standards but, more importantly, that our practices and procedures are based on a policy that will help to keep the children in our care safe".

Martin Clarke, Learning and Development Manager, TACT Fostering and Adoption

Policy Structure

We provide a setting-wide hierarchy of policy documents that enable the fostering agency to demonstrate appropriate Online Safety Governance and will embed a culture of Online Safety and Data Security excellence across the organisation. The policies will be modular, addressing each element of  Annex L  (and other relevant sections of the guidance) with a corresponding document, each of which would be reviewed on an annual basis. Each policy would consist of:
 
  • Policy statement
  • The Annex L mapping
  • Description of the process to meet policy
  • Monitoring regime
  • Description of evidence of compliance required
  • Remediation activity to address non-compliance
  • Review schedule
 
The policy suite of circa 10 documents would form the Policy Framework. 

If you would like additional information or to discuss this matter further, please contact us.
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