1. Safeguarding
Doing something about it
Tim Curtis

2. Solving the puzzle........

3. Requires thinking outside the box.

4. Group think
• Templates lead to template thinking
• Procedures lead to procedural thinking
• Avoid even have a box within which to think

5. Safeguarding
• “The term ‘safeguarding’ describes the broader
preventative and precautionary approach to
planning and procedures that are necessary to be
in place to protect children and young people
from any potential harm or damage.” Keeping it
Safe, National Council for Voluntary Youth
Services, 2002
• This is an example of where
safeguarding is collapsed into a
procedure

6. Information is power
Documents & Information
If you are to working with an existing organisation, make sure you have got:
• A volunteer policy (including the reimbursement of expenses)
• Health and Safety policy
• Child Protection policy (if you are planning to work with under eighteens)
and/or Vulnerable Adults policy
• Insurance policies, especially public liability insurance
• Equal opportunities policy
• eSafety (internet safety) policy
• Confidentiality and data protection policies
• Harassment policy
• Complaints and discipline policy
• Facilities and provision for disabled volunteers
It’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.

7. Risks of harm
Risk of harm can be posed by actions and inactions in many
different situations such as:
• intimidation and other threatening behaviours;
• behaviours resulting in injury, neglect, abuse, and
exploitation by self or others;
• the use of medication;
• the misuse of drugs or alcohol;
• aggression and violence;
• suicide or self-harm;
• a person’s impairment or disability; or
• accidents, for example, whilst out in the community or
participating in a social event or activity.
And the list will go on.....................................................

9. Being clear about what you don’t know

10. Thinking systemically

11. Your systemic analysis of risk:

12. Working with Risk:
1st Law of Thermodynamics
• Energy can be neither created
nor destroyed. It can only change
forms.
• In any process in an isolated
system, the total energy remains
the same.
Or, in our world, the 1st Law of Risk Dynamics:
RISK does not go away, it just changes form

13. Working with Risk
The assessment and management of risk should promote the
independence, real choices and social inclusion of vulnerable
adults;
• Risks change as circumstances change;
• Risk can be minimised, but not eliminated;
• Information relating to vulnerable adults, activities, relationships
and circumstances will sometimes be incomplete and possibly
inaccurate;
• ‘Defensible’ decisions are those based on clear reasoning;
• Risk-taking can involve everybody working together to achieve
positive outcomes;
• Confidentiality is a right, but not an absolute right and may be
breached in exceptional circumstances when people are deemed to
be at serious risk of harm or it is in the public interest

14. Risk management options
• In descending order
• Avoid the risk: If the level of risk cannot be satisfactorily reduced
through other means, you may decide not to engage in a particular
activity or provide a particular service.
• Control the risk: involves implementing measures to both reduce
the likelihood of a harmful
• event occurring and to minimise the impact of such an occurrence.
• Resource the risk: It is important to provide resources to meet the
liabilities caused by the risks when they are identified.
• Transfer the risk: This typically happens when an organisation
decides to have a qualified third party carry out a particular activity
so that the risk is transferred to him/her.
• Accept the risk: Tolerate the risk, perhaps because no reasonable
action can be taken to mitigate it or the likelihood of the risk
occurring and its impact are at an acceptable level.

15. Keeping assessment going
• Systemic (not systematic) analysis
• Risk register
• Method statement(s)
• Accident/incident/near-miss reports or notes
• Regular diarised reviews

16. What risk management is NOT:
• a process that you finish
• a document to submit to someone else
• a paper chase
• that which gathers dust on a shelf
• done by experts for you
• a bore

17. BE HONEST: BE YOURSELF
• Do you feel out of your depth?
• Is there something you are not clear about?
• Do you feel uncomfortable?
• Do you see someone else looking
uncomfortable?
THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

18. The results of these assessments
(throughout your volunteering activity)
are to be included in your portfolio