Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board

Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board (CSAB) is made up of organisations who support Adults in Calderdale including:

  • Adult Services and Well-being, CMBC
  • Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group
  • West Yorkshire Police
  • Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT)
  • South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust (SWYPFT)
  • National Probation Service
  • WomenCentre
  • West Yorkshire Fire Service
  • Bradford & Calderdale Probation CRC
  • Housing, CMBC
  • Together Housing Group
  • Health Watch Calderdale
  • Age UK Calderdale

The SAB has a number of sub groups including:

  • The Business Group
  • Performance and Quality Subgroup
  • Safeguarding Adults Review (SAR) Subgroup
  • Joint Learning and Improvement Subgroup
  • Communication and Engagement Subgroup

More About the Safeguarding Board

Everyone who works with adults at risk in Calderdale wants to do their best to make sure that they are safe and supported. Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board has identified 6 priorities for the Board to focus on between April 2017 and March 2018 which will help to do this. These are:

  • Empowerment: People are supported and encouraged to make their own decisions and informed consent.
  • Prevention: It is better to take action before harm occurs. Communities are safer.
  • Proportionality: The least intrusive response appropriate to the risk presented. Outcomes are positive and personalised for individuals who are at risk of abuse and neglect.
  • Protection: Support and representation for those in greatest need.
  • Partnership: Local solutions through services working with their communities: Communities have a part to play in preventing, detecting and reporting neglect and abuse.
  • Accountability: Accountability and transparency in delivering safeguarding.

Find out more about how the Safeguarding Adult Board works on these priorities as you look through the website.

The Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board (CSAB) consists of the The Safeguarding Board, Business Group and various Sub Groups.

Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board is a partnership body that is independent of all the organisations that work with adults at risk in Calderdale. A Local Safeguarding Adult Board (LSAB) is a statutory body, so every area has to have one and the Council have a special responsibility to ensure that it is effective in what it does. Members of the Board represent all types of organisations and groups and have an equal say.

So what does CSAB do? It is there to make sure that all organisations and people who work with adults at risk know about and know what to do about things and situations that are causing or may cause adults at risk to be harmed. So it makes sure that all organisations and their leaders sign up to and commit to work in certain ways and make sure that safeguarding is a priority in their own organisation and in how they work together with others. CSAB is not responsible for the delivery of services, though those who plan and make decisions about services locally take its views seriously. It is responsible for holding members to the commitments they make, and for making sure that everyone knows about how best we should work together to support and safeguard adults at risk.

What else does CSAB do? Of course things don’t always go as they should and we know that tragically some adults suffer harm, neglect, abuse and on rare occasions death. There are many reasons why this happens and when it does, it is the CSAB’s job to understand what happened and why, so that it can help its members to identify what can be learnt and what needs to change to reduce the chance of it happening again.

How can you learn more about the work of the Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board? Every September, CSAB publishes its Annual Report, which provides an account of what everyone has done in the past year to make sure adults at risk are safe and supported. The report also sets out how the LSAB and its partners are going to further improve these arrangements.

You have probably heard the phrase “safeguarding is everyone’s business” and whilst this is of course true, it raises some key questions for each of us, whoever we are or whatever we do:

  • Do we know and are we clear about what this means for us especially if we have a concern that an adult may not be safe?
  • Do we know what to do?
  • Are we confident that other people would know what to do and that things will work as they should?

CSAB is here to make sure that the answers to these questions are in place.

Our vision
The Vision for the Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board is for the Borough of Calderdale to be a safe place to live for all its Citizens, regardless of their circumstances. This means that

All Citizen’s of Calderdale, irrespective of age, race, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation live in Community that protects their rights and freedoms, and allows them to live free from abuse and neglect, and the fear of abuse and neglect.

This vision is one that promotes a zero tolerance of all forms of abuse and underpins a commitment to ensuring that no “adult at risk of abuse” has to tolerate or be exposed to abuse, neglect or exploitation. This means that as a Board we will work with all local partner agencies, people who experience services and their families / informal carers and the wider community to:

  • Ensure everyone works together to reduce the likelihood of people experiencing abuse and neglect.
  • Ensure that all people (especially those that experience services) know how to recognise when abuse and neglect is occurring and how to report this.
  • Ensure that all partners work together to end abuse that is occurring when the “adult at risk of abuse” is not able to keep themselves safe.
  • Ensure that when abuse and / or neglect has occurred people are supported to access their full civil and criminal rights.
  • Ensure that all safeguarding adults responses keep the person at the heart of the process and supports them to meet their own individual expectations and outcomes.
  • Ensure that people who experience services and their families / informal carers can help shape and influence the development of safeguarding services in Calderdale.
  • Ensure the Board learns from people’s experiences and has a system that enables it to end practice that does not keep people safe or at the heart of the safeguarding response.

In setting this vision the Board is aware that people have the right to make “unwise decisions” (including those that are associated with harm and risk) as outlined in the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The Board will ensure that all partners have the necessary knowledge and understanding of the
Mental Capacity Act 2005 so the rights of all people it serves can be protected.

Our aims
The strategic aims reflect the vision of the Board and the principles and values that govern how the safeguarding adults procedures should be implemented in Calderdale. We are committed to supporting the ongoing implementation and embedding of the following principles & values:

Empowerment: We will work in a way that supports people to have control of their own lives and enables them to manage risks in their own risks. This will be done by working with people to support their decision making to ensure safeguarding responses meet people’s expressed wishes and outcomes. When the person does not have the Mental Capacity to make decisions around managing their own risks we will ensure the person is involved to the fullest extent possible with appropriate representation, and decision making is done in their best interests, which recognise their wishes, feelings, beliefs and values.

Prevention: We will ensure that all partners work together to meet the primary strategic aim of the Board, which is to prevent people experiencing abuse and / or neglect. This involves supporting people to safeguard themselves from the risk of abuse. We will also ensure that all partner organisations have systems in place which reduce the likelihood of abuse occurring. This will include ensuring prevention of abuse is a core element in the development, commission and delivery of services.

Protection: We will ensure everyone understand their duty of care and/or moral responsibility to act upon suspicions of abuse within the context of these procedures; and ensure that adults at risk as citizens receive the protection afforded to them in law. This will include ensuring safeguarding responses are in keeping with the expectations of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Proportionality: We will ensure that responses to safeguarding adults alerts are proportional to assessed risk and the nature of the allegation/concern. This will ensure the safeguarding adults procedures are not used in an inappropriate manner.

Partnership: We will ensure all parties work together as partners to prevent and respond effectively to incidents or concerns of abuse. This includes working together effectively to support the adult at risk in making informed decisions about identified risks of harm and helping them to access sources of support that keep them safe. We will also work with relatives, friends, informal carers or other representatives such as advocates as partners, as appropriate, to achieve positive outcomes for the adult at risk.

Accountability: We will ensure transparency and decision making that can be accounted for. This involves each individual and organisation fulfilling their duty of care, making informed defensible decisions, with clear lines of accountability. It involves organisations, staff (and volunteers) understanding what is expected of them, recognising and acting upon their responsibilities to each other, and accepting collective responsibility for safeguarding arrangements.

Board structure

The Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board is comprised of a number of sub groups. These include:

  • Safeguarding Adults Board Business Group
  • Safeguarding Adults Review (SAR) Subgroup
  • Learning and Improvement Subgroup
  • Performance and Quality Subgroup
  • Communication and Engagement Subgroup

When required, task and finish groups will be set up to deliver on specific priorities within the work programme. These task and finish groups will comprise of representatives nominated by board members who have sufficient knowledge and skills to contribute to the required task.

To see the full structure chart for Calderdale Safeguarding Adults Board, please see: Strategic Plan 2021-2024.