What is child safeguarding?

Child safeguarding is your organisation's responsibility to ensure that your people, partners and programs do not harm children. It includes policy, procedures, and practices to prevent children from being harmed, as well as steps to respond if harm occurs. 

Why is child safeguarding important for your organisation?

Child safeguarding is crucial for organisations to ensure the safety of children they come into contact with. It also helps organisations comply with legal and ethical responsibilities,  industry standards, maintain trust, and prevent reputational damage.

Who is responsible for child safeguarding in an organisation?

Child safeguarding is a collective responsibility involving all staff and volunteers.  Governance boards and leaders have particular fudiciary and oversight responsibilities. Organisations often designate a safeguarding officer or team responsible for overseeing and implementing safeguarding policies and procedures.

What are the key components of a child safeguarding policy?

A child safeguarding policy should include clear statements about the organisations values, principles and zero tolerance of abuse.  It should also outline the organistion's processes for understanding and managing child safety risks, recruiting, supporting and training its people and partners, a code of conduct that clearly lays out expected behavioural standards, its child focused complaints mechanisms, and how the organisation responds to and reports safeguarding concerns.

How can organisations ensure staff and volunteers are aware of child safeguarding policies?

Organisations should provide regular training and awareness programs to educate staff and volunteers about the importance of child safeguarding, signs of abuse, and the organisation's policies and procedures.

How should an organisation respond to a child safeguarding concern or allegation?

Organisations should have a clear responding and reporting process that involve immediate action to ensure the child's safety, reporting to appropriate authorities, conducting an internal investigation, and providing support to those involved.

What is the best place to start?

A child safe organisation must have a child safe culture.  Policy and procedures are necessary ingredients for child safety, but no matter how good and compliant your documents are, if your people and partners don't nurture a child safe culture your organisation cannot be child safe. This requires your board and your leaders to have endorsed a clear child safeguarding commitment statement that is shared and understood across the whole organisation, including with children and young people. It also requires that your organisation enables input from children and young people and values what they have a say.

What are the essential aspects to have in place?

Child safeguarding is the sum of many parts. There is no single part that will make your organisation safe for children.  However, it is important to have essential building blocks in place. These will include a written Policy, that is supported by procedures for the participation of children and young people, recruiting and selecting people and partners, complaints mechanisms,  responding and reporting, and risk management.