How we keep your child safe

When girls feel safe, they push themselves to do incredible things

Keeping girls safe is at the heart of everything we do in Girlguiding.  

We have an excellent reputation for keeping girls safe that comes from carefully checking our volunteers and following best practice procedures. 

We check our volunteers 

We carry out compulsory recruitment checks for any adult volunteers who work directly with our young members. This includes: 

  • A criminal record check  
  • Two personal references 
  • A discussion between the potential volunteer and a senior volunteer who is responsible for the management of adult volunteers 

Volunteers are only accepted into Girlguiding if they pass our checks. 

We follow a code of conduct 

We expect all adults in Girlguiding to follow our code of conduct, whatever they do. This is a promise that all volunteers make to keep our membership safe and to act as a role model for girls and young women. 

We carefully train our volunteers 

All our volunteers have training on safety and safeguarding, including how to carry out risk assessments, respond in emergencies and handle child protection concerns. Everyone in guiding follows our safeguarding policy and procedures. 

We keep girls safe in, and outside of, the meeting place 

We make sure there are enough adults to look after girls while they're doing activities. We carry out risk assessments in the meeting place, and on trips and residentials, to make sure we're as safe as possible. 

All adventurous activities - such as climbing, abseiling or kayaking - are run by qualified instructors. And volunteers also have to do a qualification before they take girls away for a residential trip. 

We keep girls safe online 

Girlguiding has its own online safeguarding policy. We also monitor our social media channels and respond quickly to questions and concerns. We get our safeguarding team involved immediately if there's a problem. 

If you have concerns 

If you're unhappy with anything about your daughter’s experience in guiding, please talk it through with her leader so that the situation can be resolved as quickly as possible. 

If you feel unable to raise your concerns with her leader, you can contact the local commissioner in your area, or get in touch with us.