I’m a strong advocate for culture led safeguarding as having the greatest impact on safety of children and other vulnerable people in organisations. Compliance activity is important, but if it is driving a safeguarding agenda, the impact can be significantly diluted, as organisations go about the ‘check box’ approach to safeguarding. 

Assurance processes can also be compliance driven, providing assurance as to compliance, rather than assurance of safety and safety culture.

What do we look for to provide assurance of culture? While it is relatively easy to measure and provide assurance of compliance, it is more difficult to measure culture. What are the lead and lag indicators? What are the ‘near misses’ in safeguarding?

Here are just some of the things organisations can be looking to that may give an indication as to how healthy the culture of safeguarding is:
– complaints and feedback: what is it telling you? what is the story? Is a site with no complaints doing extremely well, or is there a culture of fear operating there? Do people who have made complaints feel like the issue is appropriately dealt with and resolved? Be curious, ask questions
– staff turnover – do people feel respected and listened to and part of a team, or is something going on culturally which is driving staff away?
– are teams talking about safeguarding in their meetings? Is the board talking about it? Measure how often it is on the agenda for learning and meaningful discussion
– are recruitment, screening and induction processes always followed?
– are your working with children checks, disability worker screening, and criminal history checking done 100% of the time? 
– is safeguarding training provided at least annually? 
– are incidents reviewed for opportunities for improvement and reported to the leadership?
– are we asking staff and clients about their awareness and understanding of safeguarding ? Pulse surveys can be a great tool.

These are just some of the things that can be done to test the state of safeguarding in an organisation. 

We will talk about these and some other strategies in our upcoming webinar. It will be useful for Board members, leaders and anyone who wants to better understand safeguarding, whether you’re working with children, people with disabilities, older people, or other vulnerable people. 

Join us for our lunchtime webinar 16 June 12-12.45pm AEST – There is no cost but please register here: here https://events.humanitix.com/bbsafe-webinar-or-how-do-we-know-indicators-of-safeguarding-culture


The BBSafe Safeguarding Lead Coaching Program – starts next week!
What is it?
Sometimes by design, sometimes by accident we might find ourselves with responsibility for leading safeguarding in our organisation – running the working with children or criminal history checks, making sure we have a risk management strategy, trying to get everyone on board to do the training.  

Or perhaps you have had safeguarding added to your role, or as an organisational leader you know someone has to take responsibility (and it is probably going to be you).  

Or perhaps you are running a business that provides services to children or other vulnerable and you know you have to make sure you are compliant – or you want to make strides and be a leader in provision of safe services.  

Sometimes it can feel like you’re the only person who is paying attention. Maybe you hear exasperated statements like “more red tape!”, “we just need to get on with it!” or “no one will volunteer if we make it so hard!” more often than you would like to. It can feel overwhelming, confusing and hard to get everyone onboard. 

The BBSafe Safeguarding Lead Coaching Program could be for you. We will show you how to get the greatest impact from safeguarding efforts, engage the hearts and minds in your organisation and make a difference to the culture within your organisation. 

What does it involve? 

The program will run from 5 June to 16 July. Over the six weeks of the program, we will provide coaching in both online group and 1:1 formats to give you the knowledge and skills to engage with authority in your organisation, understand the legislative environment and to bring others on the journey that is safeguarding. BBSafe Director, Sarah Lim, will lead you through: 

• 6 x 1 hour group webinars – deep dive into a content area – covering topics such as: safeguarding culture, systems of safeguarding, recruitment and screening, the signs of grooming and abuse, context specific risk assessment, dealing with disclosures, governing for safety, engaging your organisation 

• 6 x 1 hour group coaching webinar – workshop a specific issue or problem with the BBSafe team and with peers in the program 

• 3 x 1 hour 1:1 online coaching sessions – we can have a look at where your organisation is at, where it needs to go and how it can get there. 

Who should enrol? 

People working in organisations that work with children, people with disabilities, older people, and other vulnerable people. For example, community services agencies, sports clubs, tuition/tutoring, drama or dance, churches, schools, child care, disability care, aged care, etc. Our coaching uses methods and examples from all contexts and the work we will do can be applied to any sector, business or organisation, in any state or territory or nationally.  

How do I find out more? 
For information about costings or for more information, please drop us an email at sarah.lim@bbsafe.com.au. We would love to hear from you.