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8 steps to safeguarding and child protection

A short guide to keeping children safe for the voluntary and community sector

If your group, club or organisation involves children and young people, there are steps that you need to take to keep them safe. It doesn’t matter whether you only provide a few activities for children or you regularly work with young people – safeguarding and child protection should be at the heart of everything you do. But, what does that mean in practice? 

The steps below guide you through what you need to know and put in place to effectively safeguard children and young people. Each step provides links to more detailed information to support you in keeping children safe.

This guidance replaces our previous 'Introductory guide to safeguarding and child protection for the voluntary and community sector' published in 2019.

How to keep children and young people safe

1. Assess the risks

Start by identifying and assessing the needs of the children you work with, and understand the risks that may be present. 

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2. Identify roles and responsibilities

Decide who is going to be your nominated child protection lead and be clear about their role.

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3. Get support

Make sure everyone understands why it's important to develop a culture of safeguarding and how they can help.

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4. Write policies and procedures

Make sure you have a written policy statement and effective procedures for safeguarding and child protection.

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5. Set a code of behaviour

Create a written code of behaviour to ensure everyone knows what is expected of them.

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6. Recruit the right people

Make sure you have the best people working or volunteering for you and that they are safe to work with children and young people.

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7. Get informed and stay up to date

Ensure that everyone in your organisation has the latest knowledge about how to keep children and young people safe.

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8. Review and check your arrangements

Use our self-assessment tool to audit and improve your safeguarding and child protection arrangements.

Find out more

Get training

Increase your confidence in recognising and responding to possible signs of child abuse and neglect with our introductory online, live virtual and face-to-face training courses. See courses

Get training

Increase your confidence in recognising and responding to possible signs of child abuse and neglect with our introductory online, live virtual and face-to-face training courses. See courses