Issues around Safeguarding have sadly been front page news on many of our newspapers as reports continue to emerge about issues involving charities of all sizes and as a result, enquiries have been undertaken by the Charity Commission and reports published which do not make happy reading.

Yet the issue of safeguarding for charities and their trustees and senior leadership team have always been around. The commission originally published guidance for dealing with safeguarding issues in charities in 2013 and this has been updated regularly.

Originally this was done in seperate documents for dealing with Children and Adults but this has been consolidated into one document for some time.

The guidance covers such areas as:

• Criminal record or “DRB” checks
• Protecting your beneficiaries and others coming into contact with your charity
• How to respond to safeguarding incidents
• Whistleblowing
• The Commission’s strategy for dealing with safeguarding issues

The document can be found by following the link below

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safeguarding-duties-for-charity-trustees 

and it in turn will provide links to the key guidance that all trustees and senior leadership teams need to be made aware of including:

• Child protection policy
• Procedures and systems
• Working abroad

But a word of warning.

Having good policies and procedures are essential yet all this is a waste of time unless and until they are properly implemented. I have a DBS certificate for some voluntary work I do with children including outreach into schools and colleges. However, while I am requested to take along proof of identity and my certificate to these visits, busy reception staff more often than not fail to inspect them even though I am asked to log in as a visitor and they have other security measures in place.

So it is not sufficient to talk the talk with safeguarding, charities must also walk the walk!