Ten things you might not have thought about with regards to safeguarding
Safeguarding is not just about making sure your service users are safe… what about your volunteers and your staff?
Just because you receive a DBS check back with nothing recorded for someone doesn’t mean they are safe, it only means that nothing has been recorded against their identity
Meeting someone face-to-face can often give you much more of an insight into a person than any amount of paperwork
A trial volunteering period can help in getting to know someone before making the judgement that someone is safe to volunteer alone
Sometimes volunteers and even staff can be as vulnerable as service users
Regularly checking in and refreshing around boundaries is really important
There are lone worker systems in place, e.g. @Guardian24uk which can help to keep your volunteers and staff safe
Give volunteers the knowledge, skills and confidence to assess a situation and remove themselves from it if uncomfortable
Ongoing supervision is really important in helping to identify safeguarding issues and gaps in systems
Safeguarding isn’t always about the obvious things
