Safeguarding policies and procedures can help protect people involved in your sport and activity from abuse and exploitation.
Unfortunately, we continue to see far too many examples of what happens when safeguarding goes wrong.
People often talk about the things we can learn from instances of abuse, neglect, and grooming. But what sort of lessons are we supposed to learn, and how are we supposed to make them stick?
Safeguarding is an Ongoing Process
Safeguarding is not a box ticking exercise. It’s an ongoing process of continual improvement. And as part of this process, you need a system for evaluating what’s going well, along with possible areas of improvement.
For a review process to be effective, it should include views and contributions from people involved at all levels of your sport. This includes staff, volunteers, participants, and trustees.
This means you’ll have to devise different ways to gather this information. You need to ensure that everyone can have their say in a way that meets their communication requirements. The more people you empower to speak up, the more valuable the review process will be.
Taking the time to learn from safeguarding incidents can be challenging. That’s why we created The Safeguarding Adults Roadmap.
By breaking the process down into six manageable stages, The Roadmap is here to help you develop effective strategies for implementing meaningful policies and procedures in your sport.
The Safeguarding Adults Roadmap – Stage Five – Review and Adapt
Stage five will show you how to make your safeguarding review process as accessible and effective as possible. We’ll show you how to identify the insights from your reviews that will inform best practice and minimise the future risk of harm.
In stage five of your Roadmap journey, you will develop processes to monitor and evaluate the impact of your action plan. You will learn how to produce clear board reports. These will ensure buy-in from the highest levels of your club or organisation. And perhaps most importantly, we’ll help you understand how the lessons you learn will help you amend your policies and procedures as necessary.
In stage five of your Roadmap journey, we’ll also invite you to review your risk register. Do you routinely evaluate any new risks you might face as a club or organisation? Do you complete risk assessments for any new projects you undertake? And do you include these in your ongoing action plan?
The most challenging part of stage five will involve identifying any failings in your current policies and procedures, and making changes wherever they are needed. Openness, honesty, and transparency are a major part of a safer culture in sport. It’s just as vital to recognise when things have gone wrong as it is to celebrate when things go right.