Longchen Foundation Listening Post

Longchen Foundation accepts that everyone that we come into contact with, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or other protected characteristic, is entitled to be protected from all forms
of harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Longchen will not condone abuse and exploitation by those working or volunteering on its behalf.

As part of its commitment to safeguarding throughout its work, Longchen Foundation wishes to make it easy for people to raise concerns. This may be able to prevent harm occurring, or curtail it by enabling a prompt response. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and anyone can report a concern.

The Longchen Listening Post assists people to report or raise concerns about harm by:

1. listening to reports of harm in an affirming and non-judgmental way; offering support and encouragement;
2. helping people who are concerned about possible harm to decide what, if any, actions they would like to take or any requests they would like to make of Longchen Foundation (this could include informal discussions, or meetings with relevant parties to address the issues);
3. Identifying options available when there is a concern about harm, (according to policy, legal and statutory obligations). If someone is seriously at risk of being harmed, then the local adult safeguarding team will be contacted. If a criminal act has been committed then this will be reported to the police.

You can contact The Listening Post and find out more about the support offered by writing to the following email address: longchenlisteningpost@gmail.com

Please provide your name, email address and/or telephone number. All information shared with the Listening Post team will be kept confidential unless you direct them to share it with others, or there is a legal duty to share. As experiencing and reporting harm can be traumatic, they will respond to your individual needs and try to ensure that you feel in control of the process.

The Listening Post is staffed by two Longchen members, at least one of whom will always be female. They will share details of reports with each other, providing mutual support and supervision, except in the event that there is a conflict of interest for either with respect to the concern raised.

They will be appointed by the Trustees based on their competency for the role and knowledge of safeguarding. Currently the two leads are Kathy Nairne and Caroline Cupitt who are both trained as Clinical
Psychologists and practiced for many years in the NHS.

All serious incidents will be reported promptly to the Spiritual Director and Trustees. At least once a year, and more often if needed, The Listening Post team will prepare an anonymised summary of the themes in other reports which have been addressed informally. This report will be presented to the Trustees and the Spiritual Director.

You are invited to contact The Listening Post with anything you want to share in relation to harmful behaviour, witnessed or experienced, by anyone within the Longchen community.

February 2022