The Rotary Club welcomed Doug Macdonald, Chair of the District 5360 "Protecting Vulnerable People" Committee. Doug's presentation today was about the revised District Policy for protection of vulnerable people, and expansion of the Youth Protection Policy adopted by the District in 2014.
Doug has decades of experience with organizations that deal with vulnerable people, he just finished over 20 years with Scouts Canada.
He spoke about the reasons to adopted a new policy, those being
- It's the law!
- It's both Rotary International and District 5360 policy.
- It's the right thing to do.
The policy is really designed to prevent harm, and when harm is suspected or reported, having a procedure to follow that will stand up to legal scrutiny.
The District Policy, and the job description for a Club Safety Officer (CSO), were circulated early last week. The next step is to build an incident response team and both adopt the policy at the club level and assign someone to the role of CSO. Training and certification of all volunteers needs to follow. That training needs to be repeated every 3 years, to ensure it becomes part of our routine.
A number of questions were asked and answered, and Doug was thanked by President Mark.
