Safeguarding
Owner: founder · Last reviewed 2026-08-14 · Next review 2026-11-12
Two parts: what this organisation commits to, and what we think your organisation's policy should contain.
Our commitments
- Child safety outranks the reputation, funding and convenience of this project.
- We do not currently work directly with children, and will not until a full safeguarding policy, screening and supervision are in place.
- Everyone acting for this project follows the reporting duty that applies where they are.
- No individual is named or accused by this project.
- We do not collect, host or forward evidence, and we say so on every contact route.
- Anyone working on this material has a route to support for vicarious trauma.
What a disclosure-response policy should contain
Most safeguarding policies begin at the point of reporting. The response that determines whether a child says anything more happens before that.
- The first ninety seconds. What any adult should say and not say, in words a volunteer can remember. Not a flowchart.
- A clear instruction not to investigate. Explicitly: do not question repeatedly, do not confront, do not search, do not gather evidence.
- Recording the child's exact words. Who writes it, when, in what form, where it is kept, and the rule that observation and interpretation stay separate.
- The reporting route, named. The actual agency and number, for the person holding the policy, not a reference to 'the appropriate authority'.
- A statement that staff report personally. Not through a manager who might decide otherwise.
- What happens next. So staff are not surprised, and do not fill silence with speculation.
- Support for the adult who received it. They will not be fine, and pretending otherwise loses good people.
- A review date, and evidence it has been used. A policy nobody has ever opened is not a policy.