Sleeping Arrangements
- Male and female participants will be roomed in separate assigned accommodations. Where possible, these rooms should be located within single sex corridors.
- Volunteers (same gender) will be roomed adjacent to the children’s room or if this is not possible, on the same floor as children.
- Careful attention is to be given to individual needs when allocating rooms. Children within a similar age range should be grouped together where possible.
- No child will be accommodated in the same room with an adult unless it is their parents.
- Each night of the event, designated male and female volunteers will assume responsibility for night supervision. Children will be made aware of these individuals and their location to facilitate a prompt response in case of issues that may arise in the night.
- If volunteers need to enter a participant’s room, this should be done in pairs to ensure accountability, safeguarding of both the volunteer and the participant, and to maintain a safe and transparent environment. Volunteers will always ask before entering accommodation, changing rooms or washing facilities (except for emergencies) and only enter the accommodation or changing rooms of young people of the same biological gender.
- Bedroom doors not locked from inside (to permit emergency access) but young person’s privacy respected via knock/wait protocol
- Two-adult presence required for any wake-up where a young person isn’t responding
- Lights-out time and morning wake time published; quiet hours enforced
Bathroom and Changing Protocols
- Adults and young people use separate facilities at all times where venue allows
- If shared facilities unavoidable, time-allocated separation
- No adult enters a bathroom with a young person other than for documented welfare emergencies, and never alone (two-adult rule)
Headcount and Visibility
- Roll call at minimum 4 points per day: morning wake, after each major transition, before lights-out
- Each headcount logged with timestamp and who called it
- “Buddy system” within young people’s groups
- Young people not permitted off-site unsupervised (defined boundaries communicated to all on arrival)
- Free time supervised — unstructured time has the highest incident rate