Safer recruitment training: online and in-person

Online and face-to-face safeguarding courses to help you shortlist, interview, vet and recruit the right staff and volunteers

How do you make sure safeguarding is at the heart of selecting and recruiting the right candidates for posts that come into contact with children or young people?

Developed by specialist child protection and human resource safeguarding experts, the NSPCC’s training courses will teach you to how to safely recruit the right staff and volunteers to ensure they are safe to work with children and young people.

Work in education?

See our Safer recruitment in education training course.

What will I learn?

Safer recruitment is an essential part of safeguarding. Whether you’re a commercial business, statutory organisation, voluntary group or recruitment agency, it’s important you have rigorous safer recruitment at the heart of your organisation.

Our online and face-to-face courses cover:

developing safer recruitment policies and procedures for your organisation
preparing to recruit
selecting the right people to interview
carrying out thorough background checks
responding to concerns identified through background checks and assessing risk
responding to inappropriate behaviour and allegations of abuse.

Our safer recruitment courses have been developed in line with current legislation and guidance in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Choose how you want to learn

This course is available in a range of learning styles to meet your training needs. Choose from elearning, live virtual training or in-person on location.

Cost-effective training packages

Safer recruitment is also available to buy as part of our training packages for:

Sports sector Cost: £120 £95
Voluntary and community groups Cost: £130 £95

Benefits of the course

CPD certified.
Online course updated in October 2023
Covers government guidance relevant to safer recruitment, including Working together to safeguard children.
Choose your training style: elearning, live virtual sessions with an expert trainer or face-to-face on location.
Regularly updated to reflect changes in legislation, guidance and best practice advice.
Personalised downloadable certificate of achievement.
Once you've taken the course, it doesn’t stop there. We have a range of further information, training and downloadable resources to help you protect the children you work with.
Income generated from the sale of our training courses is reinvested back into the NSPCC to help protect children.

98%

of our customers would recommend NSPCC training

* We received 35,644 evaluation forms from people who had taken our elearning courses between 1st April 2023 - 31st March 2024. 35,074 (98.4%) said they would recommend the course they had taken.

Your learning options

All NSPCC Learning courses are up-to-date with the latest information about legislation, guidance and best practice and provide a certificate of achievement.

And it doesn't stop there. As experts in safeguarding and child protection, we have a range of further information, training and downloadable resources to help you protect the children you work with.

Elearning benefits

Developed in line with current legislation in the UK's four nations – and regularly updated with changes.
Train anytime, anywhere and as many times as you like within one year.
Includes film interviews with experts, quizzes, film scenarios and reflective tasks to help you develop your understanding.
Each section takes around 30-45 minutes to complete and is followed by a set of questions. You’ll be given a full explanation of the correct and incorrect answers to help develop your understanding and confidence.
Purchasing courses on behalf of your team? Easily download reports to show who has completed the course.

Buy elearning now

Live virtual training benefits

Our live virtual training sessions are currently available for our courses covering England or Northern Ireland legislation.

Benefits include:

Remote sessions delivered live by expert trainers.
Share your ideas, experience and learning virtually with participants from a wide range of sectors and organisations.
Receive real-time feedback.
Learn from the comfort of your own home or office.
No travel costs.
Participate in interactive exercises and get direct support and guidance as you learn.

Book virtual training now

Face-to-face training benefits

Our face-to-face training sessions are currently available in either England or Northern Ireland.

Benefits include:

Delivered by expert trainers.
Developed in line with current legislation in England or Northern Ireland (depending on where you choose to take your training).
Share your ideas, experience and learning with participants from a wide range of sectors and organisations.
Learn in a dedicated learning space, without distractions.
Participate in interactive exercises and get direct support and guidance as you learn.

Book face-to-face training now

Who are these courses for?

Safer recruitment in non-education settings

Our safer recruitment courses are suitable for a range of sectors, including:

voluntary sector
community groups
faith organisations
social care
young people's offending and probation services
health sector
children's leisure and entertainment
services for children with disabilities and special educational needs
welfare and family support services
youth support organisations
commercial organisations and small businesses.

Safer recruitment in education

If you work in the education or early years’ sector, take our Safer recruitment in education training.

Cost-effective training packages

Safer recruitment is also available as part of our elearning course packages for the sports sector and voluntary groups.

Why take your training with the NSPCC?

At the NSPCC, we work to keep children and young people safe from abuse and neglect every day.

As experts in safeguarding and child protection, we understand the issues organisations and people working with children can face. That’s why professionals trust us to provide the support, training and resources they need to help protect the children and young people they work with.

Our highly-rated training courses are developed by experts. We work with a number of organisations, experienced consultants and subject matter experts in a range of sectors to develop courses that are clear, easy-to-use, up-to-date and in line with the latest statutory guidance, and tailored to your needs.

And as a charity, income generated from the sale of our training courses is reinvested back into the NSPCC to help protect children.

CPD-certified online course

This elearning course is CPD certified by the CPD Certification Service. This means you can be confident that the training meets the highest standards.

Continuing professional development, or CPD for short, helps professionals keep their skills and knowledge up to date. It demonstrates your commitment to safeguarding children and upholding the standards of your profession.

Some professional associations have mandatory CPD or safeguarding training requirements for their members, but all professionals will benefit from investing time in their CPD. And taking an online CPD course means you can train at your own pace, wherever suits you.

Technical requirements

Technical requirements for elearning

Our online courses will work in most browsers, though we recommend that you use Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Safari (not Firefox). You will need to make sure your browser is up to date for the course to run.

This course can be taken on PCs and Macs, as well as iPads or other tablet devices. Please note, we are unable to provide full technical support for tablet users. We do not support other mobile devices

Having trouble with the course?

Try:

clearing your cache
accepting our cookies (essential cookies are required for the purposes of undertaking our elearning)
turning off private browsing
permitting access to videos on Vimeo
setting the following web domain to ‘trusted’: https://mylearning.nspcc.org.uk

Call us on 0116 234 7246 or email learning@nspcc.org.uk if you have any questions about elearning.

Technical requirements for live virtual training on Zoom

We use Zoom Pro to deliver our live virtual training.

You’ll need to sign up to Zoom and agree to the Zoom Privacy Notice in order to attend virtual training.
No confidential or sensitive data should be shared during the virtual event.
In order to take your training securely and for the best possible experience please use Zoom version 5.0 or above.
We recommend installing the latest version of your web browser before beginning your course. Prior to the event, you can test your internet connection at https://zoom.us/test
Your trainer will contact you prior to your training date with details of how to login on the day of your session and setting up Zoom. You can also visit the Zoom website for technical support.