Holding planning meetings in private homes and gardens
How to make sure your planning meetings are safe and inclusive
This is part of our health, safety and welfare procedure.
This procedure helps leaders and commissioners run effective planning meetings in private homes and gardens to include young volunteers 16+.
This page covers unit planning meetings, district and division meetings, event planning and committee meetings.
A private home or garden includes any place someone lives, such as a house, flat or bungalow, as well as surrounding outdoor space and buildings like sheds, annexes or cabins.
You need to follow these rules for all planning meetings in a private home or garden.
Planning meetings are a great way to include young leaders and young external volunteers in decisions. They’ll learn how to run great meetings, empowering them with leadership skills that’ll benefit all. However, meetings in private homes and gardens can lead to blurred boundaries so these rules must be followed.
What do I need to do?
1. Follow all Girlguiding policies and procedures, just as you would for any other activity.
All members of the leadership team attending the meeting must:
- Hold a valid Girlguiding disclosure check, in line with our recruitment and vetting policy.
- Have completed the correct level of safer guiding for their role, and be aware of their responsibilities for caring for young people. 1 person at the meeting must have completed a safe space level 3 or safer guiding.
- Make sure there are a minimum of 2 adult volunteers present. Don't go ahead with the meeting if this isn't possible. The second adult present must be from outside the family home.
- Before the meeting, make sure that the parent or carer of the young volunteer has completed a new starter form and an information and consent form (PDF, 713KB), and that they're aware the meeting is taking place in a private home or garden.
2. Do your risk assessment
Complete a risk assessment in line with the health, safety and welfare procedure. Everyone in the meeting should know that a risk assessment has been done and have access to it. You can find a checklist at the bottom of this page to help you think about the risks. It won’t cover every risk, so think about any other risk factors linked to your meeting venue.
What extra steps do I need to follow so young people can attend the meeting?
If you're hosting the meeting, you'll need to make sure everyone in your household knows that there’ll be a young person in your home. And you must ask them to make sure they aren’t alone with the young person at any time.
Any young volunteer joining the meeting must have completed the safer guiding training relevant for their role. You’ll also need to:
- Make sure planning meetings aren't a weekly occurrence. They should be occasional meetings only, for instance as part of planning a term's activities or before a large event or residential.
- Avoid being 1-on-1 with a young person where possible. But if they're the first to arrive, you can invite them in and show them where the meeting is being held so they can get settled. Make sure young people aren’t left alone with anyone who isn’t a member of Girlguiding or part of the planning meeting.
Check your insurance
- Girlguiding’s public liability insurance doesn't cover 3rd-party venues like private homes and gardens or hired venues. This means that if an accident happens, like someone is injured or property is damaged in your house or garden during a planning meeting, and is a result of the venue, the claim would be against your household insurance.
- Check that your household cover includes public liability insurance. Most policies including contents insurance will include cover for visitors. It's good practice to let your insurer know that you're hosting an adult-only meeting beforehand. And it may be essential to let them know if it’s an unusually large meeting or if you've identified significant risks.
Find out more about Girlguiding’s public liability insurance.
Your home might not always be the best place to meet. You might have young volunteers under the age of 16 in your leadership team, or your risk assessment might have shown that your home isn’t accessible for your whole team. Ensuring that all safety and supervision requirements are met can be challenging, so you may want to look at alternatives.
There are other ways to hold planning meetings to make sure everyone is included.
You could hold the meeting:
- Online. Just make sure you follow our virtual meeting guidance.
- In the unit meeting place or other community venue. You’ll need to check that the parent or carer has completed a new starter form and an information and consent form (PDF, 713KB) for a young volunteer.
- Public venues such as cafes and parks. You’ll need to check that the parent or carer has completed a new starter form and an information and consent form (PDF, 713KB) for the young volunteer. Think about additional risks to using public spaces. And be extra careful with any confidential girl information.
You might also want to try to find ways to include young volunteers in planning, even if they can’t join the main planning meetings. You could take a term plan to a unit meeting, sit down separately with your young volunteers and ask them to take on parts of planning and delivering activities.
- Think about the time of the meeting, including the time of day and time of year. You might want to avoid exam season, for example, as this can be a very busy and stressful time.
- Explain how the planning meetings are run and what's expected of them. They might not have been to this kind of meeting before, so keep it informal and explain any jargon or acronyms.
- Make the meetings fun and help the young people get to know everyone.
- Aim for the meeting to be action oriented. What short-term goals can you tackle?
- Have 1 or more specific adult volunteers as a contact for the young leader to talk to about any problems. This could be anything from difficulty getting to the meeting, to not knowing how or when to share ideas.
- Make sure they know that they can challenge anything they don’t agree with, and their opinions are as important as the adult volunteers.
Who’s coming to the planning meeting?
- Check volunteers have up-to-date safeguarding and safety training. Does someone have a safe space level 3 or safer guiding?
- Have all adults attending gone through our recruitment checks?
- Are there people with disabilities or vulnerable volunteers coming? Check out our guidance on how to make your risk assessment inclusive.
- If you have new people joining, have they read and understood your risk assessment and know their responsibilities for keeping everyone safe?
- Are all details up to date on GO? Check everyone’s contact and emergency contact details.
- Do you have all the documents you need, such as consent forms for young leaders and young external volunteers? Find a copy of these in our forms and resource library.
Making sure everyone stays healthy
- Are there any individual wellbeing needs? Might you need to create adjustment plans or wellbeing plans?
- Where are medicines kept in your home? Could they be accidentally found or used?
- What will you do if someone becomes ill during the meeting?
Is your meeting place safe and accessible?
- How will people access your venue or meeting place? If you're holding the meeting in an outdoor space or garden, do they have to enter your home?
- Is the venue accessible for disabled people? Do you have ramps for wheelchair users?
- Are there toilets available? Are they accessible for all, including disabled volunteers? If you’re meeting in a private home, toilets that can only be accessed through a bedroom aren’t suitable.
- Do you need to clean the space before the meeting? How will you safely store any cleaning materials?
- If you’re using a public space, like a café or park, how will you make sure confidential information is kept safe?
- Have you spoken to your young volunteers about their travel to and from the venue? Especially if they’ve got to walk from a bus stop or train station.
- Will there be anyone else in the home or garden during the meeting? Have they been told that a young person may be attending, and not to be alone with them?
- Is there public liability insurance in place?
Financial risks to consider
- If you’re meeting in a public space, like a café or community venue, will you need to pay?
- Will other volunteers have to use expensive public transport to get to your home?
You might spend some of your own money when volunteering. Any expenses relevant to unit activities should be budgeted for and paid from unit funds. Find out how you can claim expenses with our payments and expenses guidance.
Reputational risks to consider
- How might you manage volunteers at the meeting who aren't following our policies and procedures, including the code of conduct?
- How will you encourage good behaviour from young volunteers? Have you agreed expected behaviour with them?
- What can you do to reduce the chance of being 1-on-1 with young volunteers?
- How will you make sure that other household members act as positive role models while young people are in your home?
