Learner Guide to Safeguarding and Sharing Concerns

Generation is committed to ensuring the safety and promoting the wellbeing of everyone who engages with our service. We seek to provide excellent service to everyone who joins us. The following document shows you how you can raise a concern about yourself or someone else with Generation.

Urgent and out of hours support

If your concern is urgent and someone is at immediate risk of harm, you should contact emergency services:

  • on 999 if your concern is for yourself or someone local to you or
  • on 112 if the individual would be served by emergency services in a different region or country

Generation core hours are 9am–5pm on working days (not during public holidays or week-ends).

If your concern falls out of these hours and you need emergency well-being support, you can call The Samaritans on 116 123 in either the UK or Ireland. There are other options for how to contact them on the Samaritans website here.

How can I raise a Safeguarding concern with Generation?

There are several ways to raise a Safeguarding concern with Generation.

In the first instance, you may feel comfortable speaking to one of your Mentor, Instructor, Learning Manager when you are on the bootcamp, or with your Placement Manager or Employability Coach if you are a graduate.

If you do not feel comfortable doing so or you feel like the concern needs to be addressed by senior staff at Generation you can complete this concern form. There is an option to report your concern anonymously if this is your preference. We do encourage you to share your name and contact details where you are comfortable doing so since this will help us to best respond to your concern. Another reason why you may want to use the form to submit your concern is because there are useful prompts for what information to include. You can use the same form whether you are in the UK or Ireland.

Alternatively, you can use the following email, for both UK and Ireland: safeguarding.uki@generation.org

Who will manage my Safeguarding Concern?

  • Sheereen Bahadur is our Designated Safeguarding Lead.  She is responsible for managing safeguarding in the first instance. If Sheereen is not available or if the concern is around Sheereen, it will be picked up by one of the following members of staff. They share access to incoming messages also. 
  • Fliss Allchin is Head of Learning and Inclusion and Deputy Safeguarding Lead. 
  • Mangala Nanda is Chief Learning Officer and Deputy Safeguarding Lead.
  • Kate Mara is Head of Mentorship and Employability and Deputy Safeguarding Lead.
  • Michael Houlihan is Chief Executive Officer and he therefore has overall leadership responsibility for the organisation’s safeguarding.

What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding is an all-encompassing term used to describe many aspects of keeping safe. It includes:

  • Health, safety, and wellbeing
  • Child protection
  • Protection of adults at risk
  • Bullying, harassment, and discrimination including racial abuse
  • Self-harm
  • Abuse and neglect
  • Domestic violence
  • Safety from sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, and forced marriage
  • Alcohol, drug, and substance misuse
  • E-safety including all aspects of electronic communication
  • Financial exploitation
  • The security and safety of Generation’s equipment and resources

Prevent: protecting people from radicalisation and extremism


In Generation we respect the Global Values (also known as ‘British Values’ in the UK) of Democracy, Rule of Law, Individual Liberty and Respect and Tolerance. We have a legal duty to keep follow Prevent duty guidance. You can read a detailed guide here and access further guidance from ACT (Action Counters Terrorism) here. We’ll pick up on this more throughout your bootcamp. If you have any concerns about people sharing radical or extreme views, do report them immediately. 

 

The Code of Conduct outlines the rules by which Generation is governed and the behaviours we encourage, and discourage. This is designed with safeguarding across all areas mentioned above in mind. 

If anything is observed that makes us concerned for anyone’s safety or the safety of those around them (e.g. they talk about harming themselves or harming others), we have a duty of care to act in the best interests of the person at risk of harm. This includes:

  • Reporting the content to the Generation Safeguarding team. The Safeguarding team will assess the situation and establish the best course of action based on a number of factors including; consideration of the specific scenario, and whether the individual is a current Generation learner or graduate in the post-programme phase (we have increased obligations for anyone who is currently on a learning programme with us).
  • Passing information on to other appropriate adults (e.g. Employer), or a third party such as emergency services or social services if deemed appropriate.

Thank you for reading this guidance. We hope that you really enjoy your time with Generation and benefit from our service. Please do reach out as above if we can support you or others in staying safe.