Safeguarding Adults Week Round-up
We had a fantastic week of awareness-raising and engagement for this year’s Safeguarding Adults Week 2022. The national week of activity, coordinated by the Ann Craft Trust, aims to raise awareness of safeguarding adults issues, and we can certainly say that we did this in Newcastle, with a bumper programme of activities.
The Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board hosted, contributed to, attended or promoted 15 different events, covering a wide range of topics and issues related to safeguarding adults. Over 1,000 people attended or participated in these activities, this included members of the public as well as a significant number of professionals.
For the first time we co-ordinated efforts with neighbouring Safeguarding Adults Boards in the North East, jointly hosting events of common interest on county lines and criminal exploitation, self-neglect, organisational abuse and fire safety. The regional self-neglect webinar attracted nearly 700 participants and included speakers from leading national experts on the subject. You can find out about some of the resources and information used on the webinars at the bottom of this post.
In-person events
We were delighted to be able to attend two in-person events for the first time in three years. We supported Newcastle City Council and Your Homes Newcastle at their White Ribbon Event, talking to people about how safeguarding adults procedures can be used to protect adult victims and survivors of domestic abuse who have care and support needs. We also attended a Carers Rights Day event organised by the Prevention Network. We delivered a presentation about what safeguarding adults is, how concerns can be reported and some of the risk factors that might be present in a carer/cared-for relationship.
Social media
In addition to the webinars and events, the NSAB and partner agencies took to social media to spread key messages further. It was great to see so much activity across our networks. Our website had over 3,000 visits across the week and our @newcastle_sab tweets were seen in excess of 10,000 times.
Single-agency activity
It was great to see agencies taking the opportunity to directly raise awareness within their own organisations. Changing Lives held daily events under of the banner of “Responding to Contemporary Safeguarding Challenges”, supporting staff and volunteers to be confident in responding to different forms of abuse and exploitation. Around 150 people attended sessions which included topics on online harm and tech abuse, financial exploitation and safeguarding children. Connected Voice Advocacy shared a case study in Connected Voice News highlighting the important role of advocacy in safeguarding adults work and staff from Ward 21 at the Freeman Hospital created a “Hot Topic” noticeboard all about safeguarding adults.
Self-neglect animation launched
A big part of the week was the launch of an animation about self-neglect. The short film aims to raise awareness with the public about what self-neglect is and what help and support is available.