The Building Blocks of Safeguarding Culture – Trauma informed safeguarding practice
We have been working with some incredible organisations in training teams and building cultures of safeguarding. A recurring theme is how organisations can and should be trauma informed in working with children and vulnerable adults. Being trauma informed contributes to better cultures of safeguarding as we recognise the vulnerabilities of the people we work with and understand the risk that can come with that. It also helps us to build safeguarding responses that focus on the human beings involved – for people who have been harmed and also for work teams that may be impacted. 

Join us at this month’s webinar as we explore the application of trauma informed practice in safeguarding. 
Friday 16 August 12-1pm AEST. It is free but register here:
https://events.humanitix.com/bbsafe-safeguarding-webinar-or-trauma-informed-practice-in-safeguarding

Trauma informed investigations
Did you know that BBSafe conducts safeguarding investigations? And we bring our deep experience in trauma informed practice to ensure that our investigations contribute to safety, support people involved and are undertaken with the highest standards of fairness and integrity, as well as legal compliance. We understand things like:
– the skills needed to interview children, people with disabilities, First Nations people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and other vulnerable people
–  the gender of the people undertaking the investigation and how that can impact 
– the sensitivity required in dealing with all impacted persons for safeguarding investigations
– the complexities of the dynamics of institutional abuse

We would love to talk to you about how we could assist your organisation to develop internal capability, or to support you to conduct investigations in a way that is aligned with your organisation’s values and purpose. 

A new BBSafe service – Reporting@BBSafe 
When we are working with organisations, we advocate for easy to find, widely known, multi-channel reporting processes where people can raise concerns – including low level concerns – quickly and easily. These processes need to be suitable and appropriate for the clients you are working with, taking into account things like age, and language and communication barriers. There should also be an ability for people to raise safeguarding concerns anonymously. 

To support organisations in this work, we are kicking off our Reporting@BBSafe service. We will partner with organisations to provide an external reporting service for anyone wishing to raise a safeguarding concern. This could be because they want to remain anonymous or because they aren’t sure who to go to internally. The service will be trauma informed and we will work with your organisation on the next steps after a report – you remain in control of what happens next – we can support you as much or as little as you want, for example, we can remain the point of contact for people raising concerns, we can work with you on response planning and investigations if necessary. 

We are looking for five organisations to partner with as we develop this new service. There will be no establishment or ongoing cost for these organisations – costs are only incurred if the service is used. Please get in touch if you’re interested to know more sarah.lim@bbsafe.com.au.

Child Protection Week 2024
CPW is 2-6 September. You may wish to think about how you will mark the event in your organisations. Here are some ideas:
– arrange a staff morning tea to talk about safeguarding – not just reporting but prevention and detection
– talk about your approach to safeguarding in your newsletters or other materials so your clients know you take it seriously
– invite children you are working with to participate in an art competition with the theme of “what makes me feel safe”

Feel free to share this newsletter with colleagues. And reach out anytime if we can be of assistance.