Reform Restore Respect [RRR] Charity works with school children as part of its activities. These include:
Providing hard hitting, high impact, interactive, 90-minute workshops in Kent primary and secondary schools, based on the harsh teenage experiences of former gang member Francis Osei-Appiah, our Founder, CEO and Presenter, our aim is to dissuade and deter young people in Kent, many of whom may otherwise be vulnerable to joining gangs, engaging in anti-social behaviour and being recruitment into ‘county lines’ drugs activity. These workshops have been consistently applauded in Kent schools by teaching staff, statutory service providers, The High Sheriff of Kent, Kent police but, more importantly, by the young people who attend them.

The purpose of this policy statement is to:
• protect children and young people who take part in RRR’s workshops, specifically those where photographs may be taken

• set out the overarching principles that guide our approach to photographs being taken of children and young people during our workshops

• to ensure that we operate in line with our values and within the law when creating, using and sharing images of children and young people

This policy statement applies to all staff, trustees, volunteers and other adults associated with RRR.

Legal framework

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of legislation, policy and guidance that seeks to protect children in England and Wales. Summaries of key legislation and guidance is available on:
• online abuse learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-abuse-and-neglect/online-abuse
• child protection learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-protection-system

We believe that:

• children and young people should never experience abuse of any kind
• we have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people and to take, share and use images of children safely.

We recognise that:

• the welfare of the children and young people taking part in our workshop is paramount
• children and their parents/carers have a right to decide whether their images are taken and how these may be used, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation
• The school venue RRR is visiting consent to take images of children is only meaningful when the children and their parents/carers understand the potential risks associated with the use and distribution of these images
• there are potential risks associated with sharing images of children online.

We will seek to keep children and young people safe by:

• Always asking the question of the school venue we are visiting teachers/staff about whether the school have written consent from a child and their parents or carers to be part of our workshop photograph (as we follow the school consent and their lead on this).
• changing the names of children whose images are being used in our published schools project report whenever possible (and only using first names if we do need to identify them)
• never publishing personal information about individual children
• using images that positively reflect young people’s involvement in our workshop on our website, Twitter and Facebook which may be shared by our followers.

We will also develop a procedure for reporting the abuse or misuse of images of children as part of our child protection procedures. We will ensure everyone involved in our organisation knows the procedures to follow to keep children safe.

Photography for personal use

When children themselves, school staff, parents/carers or spectators are taking photographs at our workshop and the images are for personal use, we will announce details of our photography policy statement before the start of the workshop.

Photography for RRR’s use

We recognise that our workshop presenter may use photography and filming as an aid in our workshop. However, we ask the school venue we are visiting to make children/young people and their parents/carers aware that this is part of the workshop and give written consent to as part of the booking process. This is made clear on our booking form as “YOU MAY WISH TO SEEK PARENTAL/GUARDIAN PERMISSION FOR YOUR PUPILS TO ATTEND THIS SESSION”

We will seek to keep children and young people safe by:
1) When we visit school venues and take photographs of the workshop (We always liaise and consult with the school staff present in the workshop in regards to which students/parents have consented with the school we are visiting in question for the student to be in our photograph) we always ask in every school venue we visit to signpost and remove students wo should not be in any photograph in line with the school venue consent procedures.

2) In protecting school children further and with the new GDPR in mind coupled with safeguarding, we adopt that all school photographs of our workshop are taken from the back of an assembly hall/room/theatre just so we don’t have the actual face of students in our photographs but, rather the back of their heads and only our workshop presenter face in the photographs. We make this very clear to all school children before the photographs are taken.

Photography for wider use

If people such as local journalists, professional photographers not hired by RRR Charity or students wish to record one of our workshops and share the images professionally or in the wider world, they should seek permission in advance from RRR.   RRR board of  trustees will decide whether to grant permission for photographs to be taken. We will contact the school venue to seek consent from the children who are the intended subjects of the images and their parents as well.

If RRR is concerned that someone unknown to us is using our workshop for photography or filming purposes, we will ask them to leave and (depending on the nature of the concerns) follow our child protection procedures.

Storing images

We will not store photographs of children as we only take photographs of children from back of their head shots just so the children face is not actually in the photograph but rather only our workshop facilitator face is in the photograph.  From time-to-time, despite our best intention and pre-warning school children not to turn their heads whilst taking photographs as we do not want to identify their actual faces in our photographs for social media and website; some children will turn around. We put the photographs taken in our workshops on our Twitter, Facebook and Website then delete the photographs from RRR charity device whether it be mobile phone or iPad so there is no need to store the photographs.
We will never store images of children on unencrypted portable equipment such as laptops, memory sticks and mobile phones.
RRR does not permit staff and volunteers to using any personal equipment to take photos and recordings of children. Only cameras or devices belonging to RRR should be used.

This photographs and Sharing Photographs online statement was last updated on August 16, 2018