SCHol Tech Community Interest Company

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Safeguarding & Child and Vulnerable Adult Protection Procedures and Statement

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SCHol.Tech CIC offers a service which accepts donated no-longer-needed laptops from individuals and local business and organisations, refurbishes them and then donates the refurbished machines to individual families who need them in order that their child (children) may access their school work online.

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Safeguarding procedures

 

Accepting donations of laptops

 

SCHol.Tech CIC will only accept offers of laptops from adults over 18.  While we do not ask for proof of ownership, we take every care through our enquiry and collection process to ensure that the person donating the laptop is the rightful owner. 

 

If any volunteer from SCHol.Tech CIC suspects that the donor is vulnerable and may not fully understand the agreement they are entering into, they will decline the offer and refer the case to a senior member of the team.

 

No volunteer from SCHol.Tech CIC will enter a donor’s home when collecting a laptop.

Responding to requests for laptops

 

SCHol.Tech CIC will only offer a laptop to a family if the request comes from a school, other registered support agency or the parent or guardian of a child.  It will not accept requests from children or young adults under 18.

No volunteer from SCHol will enter a donor’s home when delivering a laptop.  SCHol are presently unable to offer in-person assistance to help to set up the machine.

 

Where support in relation to the use of the laptop once delivered to a family is required, SCHol will only communicate with the child’s parent or guardian, never with the child for whose use the laptop was provided.

 

Data

 

All data acquired by SCHol.Tech CIC to enable it to provide its services is held securely in accordance with its Privacy Policy.

SCHol.Tech CIC will never collect or hold any names or other information on the children of the families that receive a laptop. We only keep records of the parent or guardian’s name, address, email address and phone number.

Our online forms explicitly state for those filling in the form to NOT supply any data about the child.

We do ask for the name(s) of the schools the children attend, as part of the laptop request application process.

 

Publicity

 

Where publicity for SCHol will help to generate further benefits for young people, stories and photographs about individuals may be considered. In this case, the explicit permission of both the child’s parent or guardian will be obtained. In such cases, any young person will be identified only by their first name, or anonymously.

 

All publicity for SCHol will be handled by the leaders of SCHol, in liaison with publications/channels who agree to promote what we are doing.

 

Child and vulnerable adult protection statement

 

SCHol.Tech CIC believes that it is always unacceptable for a child, young person or vulnerable adult to experience abuse of any kind and recognises its responsibility to safeguard the welfare of all children, young people and vulnerable adults, by a commitment to practice which protects them.

 

SCHol.Tech CIC recognises that:

• The welfare of the child/young person or vulnerable adult is paramount;

• All children, young people and vulnerable adults, regardless of age, disability, gender, racial heritage, religious belief, sexual orientation or identity, have the right to equal protection from all types of harm or abuse;

• Working in partnership with children, young people, vulnerable adults, their parents, carers, and their agencies is essential to promoting their welfare.

 

SCHol.Tech CIC seeks to safeguard children, young people and vulnerable adults by:

• Valuing them, listening to and respecting them;

• Interacting with them as described in the Safeguarding procedures above.

• Ensuring that everybody involved in delivering the SCHol initiative is familiar with and abides by this document.

 

Laptops are provided with one of :

• Windows 10 21H2

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• Apple macOS

software on them.

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Every laptop we send out has been freshly installed, on a blank memory unit (SSD). Anti-virus and firewall protection measures on the laptop are set as the default for each operating system.

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SCHol.Tech CIC recognise that parents have the responsibility to manage in house parental controls and should therefore take the steps necessary to turn on or install parental control facilities. We advise all parents to ask for support with this, and in the first instance to contact their school’s ICT lead for advice on appropriate settings using a home laptop for school based work.

 

SCHol.Tech CIC are only providing laptops for education use. Owners who wish to use the laptops for other purposes, such as entertainment or business use, are doing so entirely at their own risk.

 

SCHol.Tech CIC 

April 2022