Training · Designated Liaison Person
The person your statement names.
Four three-hour sessions, in person, at a place of your choosing, for up to twenty people. Deputy Designated Liaison Persons should take it too. Certificate of participation included.
The course
Four sessions, three hours each.
Delivered in person at a place of your choosing, for up to twenty people. The sessions may run back-to-back if that suits your organisation better. Separate groups can co-op to make up the twenty — just say so when booking.
The role and the law
The responsibilities of organisations providing services to children, safeguarding attitudes and values, and the key legislation and national guidelines that apply to the role.
Tusla and An Garda Síochána
The role and responsibilities of each, and how to report to and liaise with them in practice.
Records and confidentiality
Report writing, record keeping, and what confidentiality does and does not mean in this context.
Allegations and parents
Managing allegations against staff, volunteers and young people; partnership working; informing parents when a report is being made; and promoting good safeguarding practice across the organisation.
How it is taught
The ambiguous decision, practised before it arrives.
The material is delivered through presentation, group discussion and scenario analysis — because a Designated Liaison Person who has only met the straightforward version of a decision will hesitate over the ambiguous one, and the ambiguous one is what actually arrives.
For up to twenty people, over four three-hour sessions. From €99 a person. Certificate of participation included.
Book the courseMichael has provided safeguarding training to Tusla, the HSE, Scouting Ireland, An Garda Síochána, the United Nations, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, UCD and the European Academy of Law.
Who should attend
The named person, and whoever covers.
Your safeguarding statement names one person as the first point of contact. Most organisations also name a deputy and then never train them, which leaves the role uncovered whenever the first person is on leave. Both should take this programme.
Who you would be working with
Fifteen years leading Ireland's national child protection unit.
Senior Investigating Officer with An Garda Síochána, leading three national units: the National Child Protection Unit, the Sexual Crime Management Unit and the Online Child Exploitation Unit. Ireland's National Expert to Interpol and Europol on child safeguarding.
Safeguarding policy developed with Tusla, the HSE and three government departments. M.Sc. in Child Protection and Welfare, Trinity College Dublin. More about Michael
do what you love, safely
Organisations Michael has worked with
Tusla
HSE
United Nations
Interpol
European Commission
GAA
Scouting Ireland
Teaching Council
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre
CARI
Irish Red Cross
DSPCA
St John Ambulance
UCD
Trinity College Dublin
ERA — Academy of European LawAnswers
Questions we're asked most.
Do we have to have a Designated Liaison Person?
The Children First Act 2015 requires a provider of a relevant service to appoint a relevant person as the first point of contact in respect of the organisation's child safeguarding statement. Relevant person is the term the Children First Act 2015 uses; designated liaison person is the name in common use and in Tusla's guidance. Either way they must be named in the statement itself.
Can the four DLP sessions run on the same day?
They may run back-to-back if that suits you better. Many organisations prefer to spread them, because the discussion is a large part of the value.
We only have four or five people. Is DLP training still worth it?
Separate groups can co-op to make up the twenty per session. Say so when booking and it will be arranged.
Our DLP has done the general training. Is that enough?
General training teaches somebody to recognise a concern and pass it on. The Designated Liaison Person is who they pass it to, and then has to decide what happens next. Those are different skills.
What if the concern is about our Designated Liaison Person?
Then it does not go to them, and your procedures should already say where it goes instead. If they do not, that is a gap worth closing before you need it.
Related reading: what a designated liaison person does and the Children First Act 2015, and what to do when a concern arrives.
The first conversation
Thirty minutes. No cost.
Tell Michael who holds the role in your organisation, how many people you would put through the programme, and where you would like it delivered.
- Whether your DLP and deputy are both prepared
- How the four sessions would be scheduled
- Whether you need to co-op with another group