CHILD SAFETY AND SAFEGUARDING POLICY
Last updated: August 2026
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This policy sets out how Indigo Earth Foundation ("the foundation") protects the safety, dignity and wellbeing of children involved in or affected by its work. It applies to the foundation's staff, tour leaders and volunteers, and sets out what the foundation asks of the suppliers, partners and organisations it works alongside.
The foundation is committed to preventing harm to children in every part of its activity, and does not tolerate abuse, exploitation, neglect or the mistreatment of a child in any form.
1. Who This Policy Covers
Indigo Earth Foundation is a philanthropic initiative in the process of being established as a non-profit organisation in the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Until these entities are legally registered, the foundation's programme is delivered by Indigo Safaris Ltd, which holds the associated responsibilities.
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This policy applies to:
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The foundation's directors, staff, tour leaders and volunteers
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Any person engaged by the foundation to work with or around children
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Participants travelling on trips organised or led by the foundation
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The policy is shared with the suppliers, partners, schools and community organisations the foundation works alongside, and their observance of it is sought as a condition of working together. The foundation does not control the internal policies of other organisations, and responsibility for their own staff remains with them.
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Where a trip is organised for a school or another organisation, the children in its care remain under its supervision and duty of care. Section 7 sets out how responsibilities are divided.
2. What Constitutes Harm
For the purposes of this policy, harm to a child includes physical abuse, sexual abuse and exploitation, emotional abuse, neglect, and exposure to danger through inadequate planning or supervision. It includes harm caused online as well as in person, and harm arising from an organisation's activities as well as from the conduct of an individual.
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It also includes treatment that disregards a child's dignity, such as photographing a child who has not agreed to it, entering a classroom uninvited, or treating a child as an attraction rather than as a person.
3. Code of Conduct
The following rules apply to every person covered by Section 1. They are requirements and not recommendations.
Being alone with a child. No adult is to be alone and out of sight with a child who is not their own. This applies in vehicles, rooms, tents, buildings and during activities. The only exceptions are a medical emergency or immediate danger, and any such instance is to be recorded and reported to the person responsible for this policy as soon as possible afterwards.
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Accommodation. No adult is to share a room or a tent with a child who is not their own child.
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Private contact. No adult is to give a child a personal telephone number, email address or social media contact, or to initiate private contact with a child before, during or after a visit or a trip. Communication with a child takes place through their parent, guardian, teacher or group leader.
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Physical contact. Physical contact with a child is limited to what is necessary and appropriate to the situation, such as assistance with a physical difficulty or first aid, and is never initiated where the child is uncomfortable with it.
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Gifts and money. Money, gifts and favours are not given to individual children. Support for a community is directed through the community, its school, or a partner organisation, so that it is distributed fairly rather than to individuals.
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Secrecy. No adult is to ask a child to keep anything secret from their parent, guardian or teacher.
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Language and behaviour. No adult is to use language, make suggestions or offer advice that is sexual, humiliating or frightening to a child, or to behave in a way that could be interpreted as taking advantage of their position.
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Alcohol. No adult carrying responsibility for children on a trip is to be under the influence of alcohol while that responsibility is active.
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Where there is doubt as to whether conduct is appropriate, it is to be treated as inappropriate and referred to the person responsible for this policy.
4. Recruitment and Engagement
Every person engaged by the foundation to work with or around children is asked to confirm in writing that they have read this policy and will work within it.
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For the foundation's own tour leaders and staff, and for anyone engaged directly to work with children, a criminal record check appropriate to the country of residence is required. Safeguarding is addressed at interview and references are taken up. A background check is not treated as a substitute for judgement, since most people who cause harm to children have no criminal record.
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Before a supplier or partner whose staff will work with or around a group is engaged, this policy is shared with them and they are asked to confirm in writing that they have their own arrangements in place for the recruitment and supervision of staff working with children. Responsibility for those arrangements, and for the suitability of their staff, rests with the supplier. Confirmations are recorded and sought again on renewal. Where a supplier is unwilling to provide such confirmation, no group will be placed with them.
5. Working with Children in Communities
Visits are arranged in advance with the community, its representatives, or the school or organisation concerned. The content of a visit is agreed before it takes place, and the community may shorten, change or stop a visit at any time without giving a reason.
Activities involving children take place in the presence of a parent, guardian, teacher or community representative. Participation by a child is voluntary, and a child who does not wish to take part does not take part, whatever an adult has agreed on their behalf.
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The foundation does not organise activities that take children out of school, and does not include visits to residential institutions for children in any programme, as such visits are recognised as causing harm to the children concerned.
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Visitors are not placed in roles requiring a professional qualification they do not hold, including teaching, medical care and counselling.
6. Photography, Film and the Use of Images
Images of a child constitute personal information about that child and are treated accordingly.
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Permission. Permission for photography in a community is arranged in advance with the community or its representatives and is specific to each visit. It may cover the whole of a visit, part of it, or none of it. Where permission has not been given, no photographs are taken. Regardless of any permission given by an adult or community representative, an identifiable child who does not wish to be photographed will not be photographed.
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Categories of use. Three categories of use are distinguished:
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Internal use: programme records, monitoring, and reporting to partners and funders
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Educational use: articles, newsletters, presentations and other non-commercial communication concerning the foundation's work
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Promotional use: material advertising a trip, service or product from which income is derived
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Permission for one category does not extend to another. Promotional use of an image of an identifiable child requires permission given specifically for that purpose, recorded in writing, or recorded verbally before a witness from the community and logged. Where such permission has not been obtained, the image is not used for that purpose.
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Restrictions. An image is not published alongside a child's name, or precise location data or geotags. The country, region, conservancy or reserve may be named, as this does not identify an individual child. Images showing a child in distress or in a state of undress, or presenting a child as an object of pity, are not published. Images of children are not sold or licensed to other organisations or to picture agencies.
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Participants on trips. Photographs of participants under 18 are taken and used only with the written consent of a parent or guardian, obtained before departure, recording separately whether promotional use is permitted.
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Photography by trip participants. Participants may take photographs only where photography has been agreed with the community and in accordance with any instructions given for the visit. Participants are not to publish photographs or film of identifiable children from the communities visited on social media or any other public platform, including their personal social media accounts. Permission to take a photograph does not constitute permission to publish it.
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Withdrawal. Permission may be withdrawn at any time by contacting the foundation. Images are then removed from the foundation's websites, social media accounts and any material in preparation. Printed material already distributed cannot be recalled, and copies downloaded or shared onward by others cannot be controlled.
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Records. A record is maintained of the images held, the permission held for each, and the uses permitted.
7. Trips and Group Travel
This section applies to trips organised and led by the foundation, including school and youth group trips.
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Division of responsibility. Where a school or organisation travels with the foundation, the children remain in its care and under the supervision of its own staff at all times. The foundation's tour leaders are responsible for the conduct and safety of the activities themselves, and do not assume responsibility for the general supervision of participants.
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Before departure. Each party notifies the other of its safeguarding lead, and of a safeguarding contact who is not accompanying the trip, together with how each may be reached.
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Application of the code of conduct. The rules in Section 3 apply to everyone on a trip, including the foundation's tour leaders and staff, the school's accompanying staff, and any guide, driver or supplier staff working with the group. The foundation's own tour leaders and staff accept these rules individually before departure. For the school's staff and for supplier staff, the school and the supplier are asked to confirm that the rules have been shared with their people and will be observed, responsibility for their own staff resting with them.
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Rooming. Participants share with other participants. An adult shares only with their own child. A participant is not roomed alone unless the school has requested it. Rooming lists are agreed before departure, and any change made during a trip observes the same rule.
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Briefing of participants. At the start of every trip, the foundation's tour leader and the group leader brief participants together. The rules are explained as conduct that adults on the trip will not engage in, so that a participant who experiences such conduct recognises immediately that it is not acceptable and is not their fault. The rules concerning photography during community visits and the publication of images are also explained. Participants are told who the safeguarding leads are, how to reach them, and that no adverse consequence follows from raising a concern, including where the concern proves mistaken.
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Reporting routes. Participants are given at least two means of raising a concern, at least one of which is independent of both the foundation and the school's accompanying staff. Contact details for each route are provided for participants to keep, and include the foundation's lead tour leader, the group leader, and a safeguarding contact from the school or organisation who is not accompanying the trip.
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Conduct between participants. Concerns regarding the conduct of one participant towards another are raised through the same routes and handled under the school's own safeguarding policy. The foundation's tour leaders support the school's staff in keeping participants safe.
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Challenge. The foundation's tour leaders are expected to raise any breach of these rules with any person on a trip, including a member of the school's own staff, and to require its correction. This is agreed with the school in advance.
8. Raising a Concern
A concern may be raised by anyone: a participant, a parent, a member of a community, a partner, a supplier, or a member of the foundation's own team.
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Concerns are directed to the person responsible for this policy, named in Section 11. During a trip, participants may also use the reporting routes set out in Section 7.
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Certainty is not required, nor is evidence, nor an assessment of whether a matter is sufficiently serious. Raising a concern that proves unfounded is preferable to remaining silent about one that proves well founded.
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No person raising a concern in good faith will face any adverse consequence from the foundation, whether they are a member of its team, a partner, a supplier or a participant, and irrespective of whether the concern is upheld.
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The foundation is a small organisation and its directors ordinarily accompany trips as tour leaders. It therefore does not hold out an independent internal reporting line. Where a concern relates to a director or a tour leader, or where the person raising it prefers not to raise it internally, it may be raised with a safeguarding contact from the school or organisation who is not accompanying the trip, with the management of the conservancy or supplier concerned, or with the police or the child protection authority of the country concerned. Where a concern is raised elsewhere, the foundation expects to be notified so that it may act.
9. Response
Immediate priorities. The safety of the child comes first. The child is separated from the person concerned, medical care is arranged where needed, and the child remains with someone they trust.
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No investigation. Investigation is a matter for the police and the child protection authorities. Questioning a child directly risks causing further harm and may prejudice a subsequent investigation. What has been reported is recorded in the words used, and relevant information is preserved.
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Confidentiality. Confidentiality is not promised. A child making a disclosure is told that the information will be passed to those who need it in order to keep them safe.
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Reporting. A concern is reported to the police or to the relevant child protection authority in the country concerned where the nature of the concern warrants it, and in all cases where reporting is required by law. Where a school or other organisation is involved, it is notified immediately and without awaiting the outcome of the foundation's own enquiries, and the same is expected in return. The person responsible for this policy and the founder determine the appropriate reporting action, in consultation with the school or organisation involved where a participant is concerned, and taking external safeguarding or legal advice where the appropriate course is unclear. Where a concern relates to either of them, that person takes no part in the decision. Any reporting obligation owed by the school or organisation under its own law must also be met.
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Staff. Where a concern involves a person working for the foundation, that person is removed from contact with children while the matter is dealt with. This is a protective measure and not a determination of the matter.
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Records and review. Every concern, the action taken and the outcome are recorded and held securely. Following any concern, the foundation reviews its own arrangements and amends them where required.
10. Records and Confidentiality
Safeguarding records are held securely and shared only with those who require them, being the relevant authorities, the organisation involved, and those responsible for the child's safety. Records are retained for as long as they may be required and are not used for any other purpose.
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Information contained in safeguarding records concerning a child is not used for promotional or fundraising purposes.
11. contact
Person responsible for this policy: Caroline Leclerc, Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Manager, info@indigoearthfoundation.com.
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Second contact: Christopher Bartlett, founder of Indigo Safaris and Indigo Earth Foundation, cb@indigoearthfoundation.com.
12. Status of This Policy
This is a new policy and applies from the date of publication above. Its requirements are in force from that date.
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This policy is supported by procedures and supplier arrangements appropriate to the foundation's activities, which will continue to be developed as its programmes expand.
13. Changes to This Policy
This policy is reviewed at least annually, and following any safeguarding concern raised. The updated version is available on this page with a revised "Last updated" date.
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Observations on the content of this policy, including anything considered missing or incorrect, may be sent to the contact given in Section 11.