Child Safeguarding Policy

The British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Dance and Speech work for amateur festivals everywhere to help create thousands of educational performance opportunities for children and young people each year.

The Federation, and our member Festivals, are committed to ensuring safe environments for children and young people and believe that it is always unacceptable for a child or young person to experience abuse of any kind. We recognise our responsibility to safeguard the welfare of all children and young people, by a commitment to recommend best practice which protects them.

This policy applies to our Board of Trustees, paid staff, Adjudicator members, volunteers, students or anyone working on behalf of the Federation and our member Festivals.

We recognise that:

• the welfare of the child/young person is paramount
• all children, 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, their parents, carers and other agencies is essential in promoting young people’s welfare.

The purpose of the policy:

• to provide protection for the children and young people who participate in our festivals, including the children of festival members
• to provide staff and volunteers with guidance on procedures they should adopt in the event that they suspect a child or young person may be experiencing, or be at risk of, harm.

We will seek to safeguard children and young people by:

• valuing them, listening to and respecting them
• adopting child protection guidelines through procedures and safe working practice for staff and volunteers
• recruiting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary checks are made
• sharing information about child protection and safe working practice with children, parents, staff and volunteers
• sharing information about concerns with agencies who need to know, and involving parents and children appropriately
• providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support and training.

The Federation will review this policy each year in November or sooner in light of any changes in legislation or guidance. All changes will be communicated to our member Festivals in time for the start of the new Festival year.

Creating Safer Festivals for Everyone

The Federation and its member Festivals use the following policies and procedures to create Safer Festivals for everyone:

1. A single, definitive Child Protection Policy adopted by all Federation Festivals.

2. One or more designated Festival Safeguarding Officers (FSO) appointed for each Federation Festival. Name: Ali Bond 07734 305723.

3. Best practice advice in the form of Safe Working Practice and Festival Child Protection leaflets, with support and training for all Festival staff and volunteers. Including clear reporting procedures for anyone with a concern about a child.

4. Appropriate recruitment and induction procedures for all new Festival staff and volunteers responsible for providing safe environments for everyone attending / performing at a Federation Festival.

Please note 5, 6, 7 and 8 refer to holding the Festival performances at venues

5. All Festival personnel wear an official Festival badge bearing our logo and title. All teachers/parents/guardians /carers are asked to report all incidents of any nature to anyone wearing a badge. All reported incidents will be handled in accordance with the Safe Working Practice and Festival Child Protection best practice advice. In addition we will ensure the availability of a quiet area / room where concerns can be expressed in private.

6. For the duration of a Festival all teachers/parents/guardians/carers are responsible for the continuous care and supervision of their own children/ pupils. If they are unable to attend personally, they must delegate their responsibilities to an identified adult and ensure that their children/pupils are aware of the identity and name of the person responsible for their care. This includes supervision throughout all Festival venues, practice and changing areas that may be provided. The Festival cannot take responsibility for any property left unattended.

7. No unauthorised photography, audio or video recording of children and young people is allowed at our Festivals. Where parents/guardians/carers do not wish photos to be taken at all, then the responsible adult attending should ensure that their child is not included in official photos.

8. Some children and vulnerable adults may have specific needs in order to take part. If this is the case we ask the responsible teachers/parents/ guardians/carers to contact the Festival Secretary prior to arrival. The Festival actively seeks wherever possible to meet these needs, but must know beforehand in order to prepare support or to advise that help cannot be provided on this occasion.

9. The Festival’s Child Protection Policy and approach to Creating Safer Festivals for Everyone is published explicitly in our Syllabus, Programme and on our website. By completing and signing the entry form all parents / guardians / carers and teachers of entrants under 18 (or vulnerable adults of any age) confirm that they give (or have obtained) the necessary consents for the entrants to take part in the Festival. Without consent the entry to the Festival cannot be accepted.

Privacy Policy

The Reigate & Redhill Music and Drama Festival takes great care to preserve your privacy and safeguard any personal data you provide to us. This Privacy Notice explains how we will collect and use your personal data.

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time so please check regularly to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

1. Who we are?
We are the Reigate & Redhill Music and Drama Festival. We are a registered charity (Registered Charity Number 1034060). Our registered address is 21 Rushworth Road Reigate, Surrey RH2 0QF.

2. What personal data do we collect?
We may collect personal data from you such as;
Your name
Your address
Your date of birth (if you are under 19)
Your telephone number
Your email address
Your image (only with explicit consent)
Your school, or other place of education, if applicable
Your Music or Drama Teacher’s name (optional)

3. How do we use your personal data?
We will use your personal data in a number of ways which may include:
(a) Processing your entry to take part in the festival.
(b) Keeping you updated about your entry to the festival.
(c) Sending you copies of our syllabus.
(d) Keeping you updated about future festivals
(e) Processing any applications for a paid or volunteer role within the festival
(f) Processing any donations made to us.
(g) Including your name in our printed publications.
(h) Managing any orders for publications or other materials from us.
(i) Processing your application to be involved in our governance such as becoming a member of our Committee.
(j) Responding to a general enquiry made to us.
(k) Dealing with a complaint or concern raised to us about one of our volunteers/contractors.
(l) Including your photo or name on our website, social media and festival publications

4. Who do you share my share my personal data with?
We will use your personal data to manage your festival involvement with us which may include the publicising of results at the Festival. If you are not involved in the Festival, then we will only use your personal data to deal with the issue or enquiry that you have raised directly with us.

We will never sell your details to any third party and we do not buy any personal data. If you have made a Gift Aid declaration, we will need to disclose the information you have provided as part of the Gift Aid declaration to HMRC for the purpose of reclaiming Gift Aid on your donation(s).

We may share or disclose your personal data if we are required to do so by any law or court order.

5. What is the legal basis for processing my information?
We may also process your personal data because there is a legitimate interest for us to do so as part of our work, and it is reasonable to expect that your information would need to be processed by us for to complete this work. For example, it is reasonable for us to collect your name, address and contact details to be able to process your festival entry and you would reasonably expect this to happen for your festival entry to proceed.

In some cases, we will only process your personal data where we have your specific consent to do so, e.g. to use your photo on our website and relevant social media, to use your photo in our publications, to stay in touch with you about our next festival or as a Friend, Associate, Sponsor or Advertiser of the Festival.

Whenever we process your personal data under the legitimate interest lawful basis, we make sure that we consider your rights and interests and will not process your personal data if we feel that there is an imbalance, or you would not reasonably expect your data to be processed in this way.

6. How do you keep my information secure?
Access to your personal data will be restricted to those personnel who administer the Festival. We’ll store your information for as long as we have to by law. If there is no legal requirement, we will only store it for as long as we need it. We will also keep some personal information for a period, for example, to send a Syllabus for the following year’s Festival. See also section 8 below for retention of data.

Our website may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or websites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites or advertisers.

Those websites may have their own privacy policies and we encourage you to look at those policies or contact the website operators directly to understand how your personal data is used.

We may send communications to you by email. Email is not a fully secure means of communication, and whilst we do our utmost to keep our systems and communications protected we cannot guarantee this.

7. Your rights
You can write to us at any time to get a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date and all reasonable efforts will be made to ensure this is the case. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate.

Requests, in writing, should be addressed to The Data Manager, Reigate & Redhill Music and Drama Festival, 17, Russells Crescent, Horley RH6 7DJ.

In certain circumstances we might not be able to provide you with access to some of your personal information, but where appropriate, we will notify you of the reasons for this.

8. How long do you keep my information for?
Your personal data will not be retained by the Festival for longer than necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was originally collected, or for which it was further processed, subject to certain legal obligations mentioned below.

We will retain personal data in accordance with our data retention policy set out below. We review our data retention periods for personal data on a regular basis.

We will hold personal data relating to:
Your festival entry for a maximum of 36 months following the end the festival. Trophy winners’ details will be retained until the trophies are returned safely to the festival.

Your festival performer forms for 6 months following the end of the festival.

Employment or volunteering with the festival for 5 years following the end of your employment or volunteering with us.

Legacies or donations for 6 years after to legacy or donation is received Adjudicator details for 4 years.

We are legally required to hold some personal data to fulfil statutory obligations, for example the collection and reporting of Gift Aid to HMRC, or to support certain financial transactions or under Child Licensing legislation.

The law allows you to withdraw your consent to any usage of your data at any time without needing to specify a reason. You can withdraw your consent by emailing us enquiries@rrmdf.org.uk.

Safeguarding Policy for online entries

Permission given by parents/guardians of entrants under 18 (and vulnerable adults) as part of the entry process will constitute permission for a video performance to be used for the purpose of adjudication.

Videos will be held securely in our Dropbox account and only people authorised to receive a link to them will be able to access them. This will be the adjudicator and members of the Reigate & Redhill Music and Drama Festival committee who will be administering the festival.

Videos and electronic copies of music and scripts will be deleted from our Dropbox account six months after the completion of the adjudication.

We would like to put some of the best performances on our website and social media channels for viewing after the festival finishes. Entrants or parents/guardians of entrants will be specifically asked whether or not they grant permission before any video is used on the Reigate & Redhill Music and Drama Festival website, or social media channels.