Priority Youth Housing will not tolerate sexual harassment of its employees or service users.

Action will be taken against anybody - employee, service user, friend of service user, contractor or management committee member - who is found to have been sexually harassing an employee or service user.

WHAT IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT?

Can include any kind of abuse or inappropriate behaviour directed at a person because of their gender or sexual orientation.  Abuse can take many forms:

PHYSICAL - e.g. unwanted touching, other physical contact, violence.

SPOKEN - e.g. insulting or embarrassing jokes or comments.

WRITTEN - e.g. insulting cartoons, pictures, letters.

It can be directed against one person, or a group of people.  It is any words, act, or failure to act, which make a person or group of people feel hurt, frightened or humiliated because other people refuse to accept them as equals because of their gender or sexual orientation.

PROCEDURE

LET US KNOW - It is not acceptable for it to happen to you or anyone else. You can report an incident to your Support Worker/Housing Worker, a Manager, or the Director. If you [i] feel unable to do this you can ask how to contact a Board Member of Priority Youth Housing.

A victim orientated approach will be adopted at all times by Priority Youth Housing staff receiving complaints of sexual harassment.  We will accept what you say and investigate it at once.

WHAT WE WILL DO:

All incidents will be investigated by two members of Priority’s staff, or by one member of staff and a management committee member.  If you are female Priority will ensure that at least one of the people investigating is a woman.

A report and recommendation for further action, where appropriate, will be made to the relevant Manager of the service (in their absence, to the Director). The Manager will then investigate the incident (within two weeks of the initial report) and make his/her own report and recommendation.

Both reports and recommendations will be looked at by the Director , where a final decision as to the course of action will be made.

During the investigation we will keep you informed as far as possible of any action that is being taken.

All incidents of sexual harassment will be clearly recorded and looked into.

Incidents involving Service Users:

Residents: If a resident or any of their friends are found to be sexually harassing anyone, they have broken the terms of the agreement that lets them occupy a room - this can lead to eviction.

Service User’s who are not Priority residents: where the service user receives floating support, Priority will consider withdrawing support where the service user has been found to be sexually harassing staff or other service users.

Support for victims of harassment

Service users who are victims of sexual harrassment will be provided with appropriate support by their Housing/Support Worker, including linking the young person into support and counselling services, and access to legal advice where this is needed.

Requests for a transfer: If a service user wishes to be transferred to other accomodation due to sexual harassment, or to receive help in transferring to other accommodation, Priority Youth Housing will treat this request as sympathetically as possible (however Priority Youth Housing would normally prefer to deal with the guilty party, rather than inconvenience the victim of sexual harassment further).

Complaints: For further information about how service users can make a complaint, please refer to the Complaints Policy.

Related policies for staff:

Grievance and Disciplinary Policies

Violence at Work Policy