Safeguarding Leadership Tool
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You should have captured your notes and actions under each behaviour by now. You can still go back and amend your notes. Make sure you’ve decided who is accountable for each action and agreed a timeframe for reviewing their implementation, before selecting 'Download discussion notes and action plan' below.
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Accountability resources
Eight principles for building trust through feedback (Bond Feedback and Accountability Learning Group)Safeguarding report-handling toolkit (Bond)Safeguarding report-handling case studies (Bond)Factors Influencing Misconduct Reporting: A meta-analysis (Oxfam)Core Humanitarian StandardKeeping Children SafeGood governance for safeguarding: A guide for UK NGO boards (Bond) Organisational culture slides (Bond)
Other sections
Policies and processesThis section helps leaders understand how to ensure that their organisation’s policies function to prevent and respond to safeguarding-related issues (around 3 hours).
Behaviours covered:
- Leaders display courage in ensuring that their organisation’s policies function to prevent and respond to safeguarding -related issues.
- Leaders take responsibility for ensuring the organisation’s activities, including safeguarding processes, are gender-sensitive, inclusive and explicitly consider power imbalances.
Do no harm/safer programmingThis section helps leaders understand how standards and context-specific safeguarding measures lead to safer programming (around 3 hours).
Behaviours covered:
- Leaders ensure that teams know to only approve new partners, projects/initiatives if they have evidence that the programme appropriately addresses safeguarding issues.
- Leaders are informed about the specific local or contextual challenges to implement good safeguarding practice and ensure this is reflected in planning.
- Leaders ensure their organisation is clear about their commitment to the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) and/or equivalent international standards and how these links to safeguarding.
Survivor-centred approachThis section focuses on how leaders can ensure a survivor-centred approach (around 3 hours).
Behaviours covered:
- Leaders prioritise survivors’ best interests over those of the organisation.
- Leaders ensure that processes to report safeguarding incidents or concerns, including referral pathways (e.g. to support services), are informed by victim and survivor feedback and that their wellbeing is prioritised.
- Leaders allocate financial and other resources to the implementation of robust investigations and victim and survivor care.
Awareness-raisingThis section focuses on the role of leaders in raising awareness of safeguarding within their organisation (around 3 hours).
Behaviours covered:
- Leaders model commitment to learning and development around safeguarding and participate in safeguarding training.
- Leaders regularly share insights around safeguarding that bring the issues to life in a meaningful way for staff.
- Leaders ensure that safeguarding is routinely on the agenda for leadership and team meetings.
Safer recruitment and HR processesThis section focuses on how leaders can actively champion and model safer recruitment practices (around 3 hours).
Behaviours covered:
- Leaders actively champion and model safer recruitment processes.
- Leaders support prioritising safer recruitment processes over other organisational priorities such as staffing shortages.
- Leaders demonstrate that safeguarding good practice extends to all employment processes, including the conduct of disciplinary processes etc.