Sharing the load of Safeguarding Managers

From supporting Boards to ensuring your safeguarding arrangements are effective, robust and compliant.

We've spent more time than we can remember supporting safeguarding managers and designated safeguarding leads; like many of them are you feeling that you, in your role, are isolated, and usually somewhat misunderstood. Keep Governance and Safeguarding can work alongside you, to deliver specific pieces of work, but also to support you to bridge the gap between you and the Board and grow organisational support for safeguarding.

We build a relationship with you, while taking a strategic perspective of your organisation, ensuring your safeguarding work is effective and protects your people.

With extensive experience providing support for safeguarding leaders, including Heads of Safeguarding and Board members with responsibility for safeguarding at some of the Premier League's top Clubs or the Trustees of National Charities, we are well placed to help your leaders effectively discharge their responsibilities while ensuring your operational arrangements are robust.

Training and Safeguarding Summits
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Policy Development
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Safeguarding training to meet your statutory responsibilities

If you're looking for safeguarding training, Keep Governance and Safeguarding 's experience in delivering to staff across sectors is second to none, and we are proud that the vast majority of participants on all our courses rate their training as Very Good or Excellent.

While our DSL training is competitively priced and always exceedingly well rated by learners, our Safeguarding Summits provide a greater level of value for schools and colleges committed to the continued improvement of your safeguarding practice and curriculum.

Safeguarding Summits combine training and collaborative safeguarding improvement planning

Our unique Safeguarding Summits bring your safeguarding team together for a day to ensure they are trained to the statutory requirements while facilitating open, reflective and challenging practice discussion. Such conversations provide insight into required improvements for your safeguarding systems and processes. These are then documented as part of the session and will provide evidence of effective leadership and management while demonstrating your school or colleges ongoing commitment to safeguarding.

"This training was fantastic because it was more relevant to my own setting than any other safeguarding training I have been on before. Holding our own safeguarding summit with the support of Andy, allowed all members of our safeguarding team and senior leaders to get together, receive training relevant to the latest KCSiE but most importantly with a focus on St James. There was opportunity for everyone to actively participate and hear all views from staff members on the practises and strategies used in school. The day was really worthwhile, valuable to all of our safeguarding team, very interesting, up to date and excellent value for money. The action plan produced was specific and detailed and has already had a significant impact."

Ben Caldicott, Headteacher and DSL at St. James CofE School, Hereford

Get in touch to find out more or book your Summit

The total cost of a Safeguarding Summit is £675 + VAT*, less than it would cost for you to train your DSL and two deputies to the required standard.

What's more, if you are a school with under 180 pupils, you can arrange a joint Safeguarding Summit with one more small school providing four training places for each school and share the total cost of £625 + VAT with the other school. To book a joint Safeguarding Summit identify another school who you can collaborate with and get in touch.

Our Safeguarding Summits are usually delivered in a day, but we can offer them as two twilight sessions of 3 hours across consecutive weeks if that works better for your setting.

The price of a Safeguarding Summit is based on delivering at your setting but for an additional cost we can arrange an alternative venue and/or lunch to improve your learning environment.

* Plus reasonable expenses if travelling more than 20 miles.

All bookings are subject to Keep Governance and Safeguarding's Terms and Conditions available here.

Keep Governance and Safeguarding training resources and PowerPoint slides on a screen

Safeguarding in Education for Designated Safeguarding Leads, their deputies and Governors with Lead Responsibilities

After delivering scheduled safeguarding training courses to key staff in nurseries, primary and secondary schools, colleges, training providers and universities, our experience tells us that organisations find that they get a better outcome from their training when it is delivered specifically for them and tailored to their organisation. We therefore deliver this training through our Safeguarding Summits.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 states "The [DSO] role carries a significant level of responsibility and the postholder should be given the additional time, funding, training, resources, and support needed to carry out the role effectively" and "Any deputy (or deputies) should be trained to the same standard as the designated safeguarding lead" (paragraphs 104 and 105).

We've built up a loyal customer base who hold a Safeguarding Summit, facilitated by Keep Governance and Safeguarding every two years to meet this statutory requirement. They train their full safeguarding team and sometimes include one or two governors, at a cost which is less than the price of training three staff members.

Get in touch to discuss your training needs

Safeguarding for all staff

The statutory expectations of all organisations working with children or vulnerable adults are that all staff should undergo safeguarding training appropriate to their role. Too often all staff training focuses on the signs and indicators - let's face it, that's the easy part - but our training is focused on developing the "think safeguarding" culture across your staff team, encouraging appropriate conversations to ensure nothing is missed or dismissed. Our all staff training content includes:

What safeguarding children is and the statutory role of all staff

What staff should do if they have concerns about a child, hypothesising and professional conversations

Whistleblowing and what staff should do if they have concerns about safeguarding systems or another adult in school

Types of safeguarding, safeguarding issues and the indicators of abuse

Get in touch to discuss your training needs All bookings are subject to Keep Governance and Safeguarding's Terms and Conditions available here.

Evaluations and Section 11 Audits to the effectiveness of your safeguarding systems and supporting improvement

Building on experience supporting a range of statutory agencies, service providers and third sector organisations to assess their safeguarding processes and procedures, Keep Governance and Safeguarding provides one-to-one support services and impartial strategic analysis to ensure your organisation is best prepared to safeguard the children it works with.

One school we partnered with to provide such a service underwent an Ofsted inspection shortly after we had delivered an audit of their systems. Impressed by the school's leadership's commitment to safeguarding Ofsted noted that:

"Safeguarding is effective. Leaders commissioned an audit of their safeguarding culture because they want to keep vigilant and make sure all its actions are as secure as they can be. Governors are overseeing the implementation of this audit and have regular contact with the designated safeguarding officer and his team."

The improvement of your safeguarding processes throughout your organisation is paramount in all our work. Keep Governance and Safeguarding can support you to assess the effectiveness of your safeguarding systems through targeted improvement programmes built upon:

Desktop reviews of your procedures including analytical comparison against statutory requirements;
Engagement activities staff, volunteers and children, young people and adults your organisation works with; and
Analysis of safeguarding concerns within, and referrals made by, your organisation.

Once an improvement programme has been developed in partnership with you, Keep Governance and Safeguarding can continue to support you in monitoring the implementation of agreed improvements and identifying the impact of improvements made.

Contact Keep Governance and Safeguarding to discuss your specific needs so that we can develop a package of support tailored you and offer you a no-obligation quote for our work. We are also happy to supply you with anonymised examples of our work.

All bookings are subject to Keep Governance and Safeguarding's Terms and Conditions available here.

Policy Development ensuring your safeguarding work is clearly documented and coherent

All organisations working with children or vulnerable adults have a role to play in safeguarding and have statutory expectations on them, either through Working Together to Safeguard Children, the Care Act 2014 or the specific expectations of the charities' regulators across the UK.

One of these expectations is that organisations have appropriate policies to support safeguarding practice. Often developed over time and sometimes being left to go out of date, these policies do not always reflect practice and work together coherently.

We can review your policies based upon your practice, and sector best practice, in order to develop your policy suite.

A wheel and spoke diagram showing how a range of policies work together for robust safeguarding arrangements

Why work with us?

In recent years we have seen the start of company directors being found guilty for not protecting vulnerable people in their care at the same time as statutory guidance is putting new responsibilities on Boards. Whether you are a Governor in education, a Non-Executive Director of a company or a Charity Trustee, we are here to provide tailored support to you.

For whole Boards, we provide Safeguarding Governance and Leadership Training which covers key areas of organisational responsibility including:

The safeguarding landscape and organisational culture
Key roles and responsibilities and the prioritisation of safeguarding
Developing Board oversight to support effective safeguarding governance

For Board members with responsibility for safeguarding we are a trusted adviser, to walk with you through your safeguarding responsibilities and provide confidence that you are providing effective oversight of safeguarding. We provide this service to Board members at some of the Premier League's top Clubs, school governors and the Trustees of national charities and can provide it to you in your role.