Conducting a child safeguarding review

A review that examines key child safety policies and procedures against the requirements of Child Safety Standards.

Child Wise will conduct a desktop review that examines key child safeguarding policies, procedures, relevant documents and other platforms including, but not limited to:  

• Website;
• Social media platforms;
• Child Safeguarding and Wellbeing policies;
• Code of Conduct;
• Staff and volunteer recruitment and supervision policies and procedures;
• Policies, procedures and other child safeguarding related documents produced for children, young people, families and communities;
• Staff and volunteer training requirements and content;
• Reporting and investigations policies;
• Posters, brochures or flyers / videos / online induction or training modules.

Where examples of activities or documents do not exists, there is no expectation that they are produced for the purposes of the Child Safeguarding Review. 

One on one interviews conducted with leadership teams including the CEO, directors, managers and board members.

As part of the Child Safeguarding Review process, face-to-face and online interviews are conducted with a cross section of leaders.

These interviews offer a window into the strategic vision and values of an organisation and can provide vital evidence as to the potential for sustainability. 

Roles that may be involved in the leadership interviews:

• Chair or Board representatives;
• Directors;
• CEO (or equivalent);
• Service Delivery Managers;
• Volunteer Managers;
• People and Culture Manager;
• Risk Officer;
• Child Safe Officer.

Objectives:

• Explore the understanding of child safeguarding in the organisation;
• Contribute to an overall understanding of the culture of the organisation;
• Illustrate the strategic vision of the organisation;
• Enable an assessment of the potential for sustainable change;
• Identify strengths, risks and potential mitigation.

Surveys and focus groups conducted with children and young people, parents/carers involved with the organisation and well as employees and volunteers 

To enable a complete and balanced assessment of child safeguarding in your organisation, Child Wise aims to engage with a broad range of stakeholders – children, young people, parents, carers, staff and volunteers. In this way, the Child Safeguarding Review enables child safeguarding to be considered from multiple perspectives. 

This approach also ensures those who are most impacted by child safeguarding practice – children and young people - have an opportunity to influence the review.

Focus groups are run by Child Wise Advisors and separate sessions are run for different participant groups. The number of focus groups will be determined at the start of the review and is largely guided by size and complexity of the organisation.  

Focus groups usual comprise between 8-12 participants and aim to elicit a range of information pertaining to child safeguarding, including:

• Awareness of policies and procedures;
• Concerns or worries;
• Organisational strengths;
• Ideas for improvement.

Surveys are conducted via an online system (and in some cases manually) and are coordinated by Child Wise staff and Advisors. Surveys are brief and provide another option for stakeholders to share their views pertaining to child safeguarding.

On site child safeguarding-focused surveys of facilities where children and young people spend time.

As part of the Child Safeguarding Review process, Child Wise conducts site visits to client organisation facilities to assess the extent to which they are child safe. Should your organisation operate from multiple sites, priority will be given to facilities where services are provided directly to children and their families. In case your organisation has multiple facilities where services are provided to children and their families, Child Wise will visit a number of sites that is proportionate to the size, scope and complexity of the organisation. 

Child Wise will also endeavour to visit sites in urban, regional and rural locations, where relevant, to ensure a cross-section of facilities is assessed.  

In summary, site visits should include a review of:

• Physical space and any particular risk areas (e.g. areas without sight lines such as windowless offices; toilets or change areas shared by children and adults);
• The extent to which child-friendly information is on display;
• Signing in/out procedures;
• Site security, including reception and CCTV coverage; 
• How practice meetings policy/procedures.

Overview of findings of the Child Safeguarding Review and development of an improvement plan to address any gaps. 

At the conclusion of the Child Safeguarding Review, Child Wise will present the findings to the organisation. This might include a meeting with the organisation’s leadership team to summarise the process and outcomes.  

Whilst findings must be appropriately critical, they will also include strengths on which to build.  

At the conclusion of the Child Safeguarding Review, Child Wise will work with your organisation to develop and deliver a tailored improvement plan which addresses how, when and by whom recommendations will be implemented. This is an iterative process where organisations determine the most suitable course of action and work in partnership with Child Wise to ensure they meet the benchmarks for the required standards/principles.  

For clients who purchased a Child Safeguarding Review only, this will conclude Child Wise’s engagement. If the Child Safety Review was conducted as part of the Accreditation program, Child Wise will – in most cases - make recommendations which your organisation will need to implement prior to Accreditation.