West Midlands Virtual School Children in Care Foundation (the Foundation) is a charitable organisation comprising membership and collaboration from 14 Virtual Schools across the West Midlands: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Herefordshire, Sandwell, Shropshire, Solihull, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford, Walsall, Warwickshire, Wolverhampton and Worcestershire.
The organisation is led by Trustees who are often current or previous Virtual School staff, (including Headteachers), alongside a Head of Governance.
The purpose of the Foundation is to extend the offer of art, sport and cultural opportunities available across the West Midlands region to care experienced children and young people and the professionals who work with them.
The mission is to enable children in care and care leavers to pursue their wider curricular interests and ambitions, ensuring their programmes, events and activities are accessible to all children and young people in care regardless of where they reside. It is recognised that a number of children in care reside outside of their home Local Authority and the Foundation seeks to reduce the geographical barriers to local authority funded opportunities.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility and many of the Foundation’s beneficiaries have a background of trauma and adverse childhood experiences.
As such, protecting children and safeguarding responsibilities are a governance focus and key priority for the Foundation and a fundamental part of operating as a charity for the benefit of children and young people.
The Trustees of the Foundation have expertise, extensive knowledge and evidenced experience both of working with children in care (CiC) and of recruitment, management and support of staff whose role involves direct work with CiC alongside supervising events and activities.
All Local Authorities which the Foundation provide services to adhere to their own safeguarding policies and procedures and have individual processes to plan, manage and attend events within their home local area.
The Foundation offers focused and planned activity for CiC across member Local Authorities. To do so it commissions a small number of external organisations whose function is to secure providers for events and activities over a planned annual programme.
This Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy Statement is aligned to Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018.
The purpose of this policy statement is to demonstrate that the Foundation:
This policy statement applies to anyone working on behalf of the Foundation, including (but not exclusively) the Board of Trustees, commissioned and sub-contracted providers.
It is noted that 14 Local Areas from across the West Midlands form the membership of WMVS CiC Foundation.
All Local Areas meet their statutory responsibilities and have clear Safeguarding Policies which, whilst sharing common elements, are individualised and contain references to their home Local Area.
It is a contractual obligation of that those delivering services for the Foundation are aware of their responsibilities with respect to:
Our Trustees have a strategic leadership responsibility for safeguarding arrangements, and they must ensure that we comply with our duties under legislation. They must ensure that policies, procedures and training are effective and always comply with the law. These policies should be transparent, clear, and easy to understand for staff, children and their parents/carers.
The Trustees will receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection training provided by the Foundation as required. Together, the Trustees are responsible for safeguarding across the organisation in accordance with current Charity Commission Guidance. The Foundation has also appointed two Trustees who take the lead responsibility for safeguarding (see below for contact details).
If you have a safeguarding concern - or would like to discuss any aspect of this document - please contact our Leads for Safeguarding and Child Protection:
Joanna Chick: Joanna.Chick2@herefordshire.gov.uk
Jo Green: jo.green@coventry.gov.uk
You can also contact the WMVS Children in Care Foundation via this link.
Version |
1.1 |
Approved by |
Board on 22.05.25 |
Next Review |
06.26 |
© West Midlands Virtual Schools CIC Foundation 2024. Registered charity number: 1189151 All rights reserved.