Consultancy · Policy development

Safeguarding policy, written for you.

The written risk assessment the Children First Act 2015 requires, the child safeguarding statement it produces, and the procedures that statement names — written for how your organisation works rather than adapted from somebody else's.

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What the Children First Act 2015 requires

The statement contains the risk assessment, and names the procedures.

The Children First Act 2015 requires providers of relevant services to children to prepare a child safeguarding statement, display it wherever those services operate, and make it available to parents, to Tusla and to any member of the public who asks.

The statement must include a written assessment of risk of harm, and it must specify the procedures in place to manage each risk it identifies. Those procedures then have to exist.

The written risk assessment

Every element of your service where there is a risk of harm to a child, identified in writing. Everything else follows from it, and it is the part most often missing.

The statement

The service being provided, the principles observed, and the procedures in place against each identified risk.

The procedures it names

The statement has to specify procedures against each risk it identifies, and those procedures then have to exist. Which ones apply depends entirely on what your risk assessment found.

The code of behaviour

The procedures pulled out of those documents into one page a volunteer can read on a Tuesday evening.

How it is written

From your risk assessment, not from a template.

A statement adapted from another organisation names risks you do not have and misses the ones you do. Michael works from your services, your premises, your people and your volunteers, then writes what follows from what is there.

Michael reads what exists

Your current documents, how they are used, and whether anybody could find them if they needed to.

Michael writes the risk assessment

Service by service, in writing, in consultation with whoever manages each one.

You own the documents

Yours to hold, amend and stand over, with no dependency on Michael afterwards.

What you receive

What each document does, and whether you need it.

Eleven documents exist in this area. Very few organisations need all eleven, and several will already have some of them in good order. The risk assessment decides which apply to you — a crèche and a county board arrive at different lists, and paying for documents you do not need helps nobody.

Michael tells you which of these your organisation requires before any work begins, and what it would cost. If your existing documents are sound, he will say so.

Child safeguarding statement

A written statement specifying the service you provide and the principles and procedures you observe so that children availing of it are safe from harm. It includes the risk assessment and specifies the procedures managing each risk. Large or complex organisations sometimes need one overarching statement and separate statements for different branches or locations — a decision worth taking deliberately rather than by accident.

Written risk assessment

Every element of your services where there is a risk of harm to a child, identified through consultation with the person who manages each service, because they are the ones who know where the risk sits.

Code of behaviour

Emanates from the safeguarding policy and procedures. It extracts the procedures that apply to staff and volunteers from across the various documents and collates them into one accessible page they can refer to as circumstances require.

Child safeguarding policy

The overarching policy that the procedures answer to.

Procedure for reporting child protection or welfare concerns

How a concern moves from the person who noticed it to the statutory agencies, and who is responsible at each step.

Mandated persons procedure

Maintaining the list of who in your organisation is a mandated person, and what that obliges them to do.

Procedure for the provision of child safeguarding training

Who is trained, in what, how often, and how it is recorded.

Procedure for responding to abuse allegations against staff

Held separately from your ordinary disciplinary policy. Suspension here is without prejudice — no judgement is made as to guilt or innocence — but the risk of harm to the child concerned, or to any other child, has to be seriously considered. It also covers the risk assessment that should happen after any statutory investigation concludes, whatever the outcome, before a suspended person returns.

Internet and social media policy

Online safety for children who access the internet while using your service, and the boundaries expected of staff and volunteers.

Recruitment procedure for people working with children

Recruiting people suitable to work with children, and what is checked before anybody starts.

Garda vetting policy and procedure

The National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 makes it a criminal offence for an organisation to employ or permit a person to undertake relevant work with children without a vetting disclosure. The policy sets out who in your organisation requires vetting and the procedure you follow.

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