Safeguarding procedure

This procedure explains how to respond to safeguarding allegations, concerns or disclosures

Last updated: 4 October 2023

How to contact the HQ safeguarding team

If you have a safeguarding concern, report it.

Get in touch during office hours on +44(0)207 834 6242 ext. 3037 or email [email protected].

For out of hours emergencies, call +44(0)7508 032997 (5-10pm Monday to Friday; 9am-10pm Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays).

If we don’t answer your call straight away or it’s outside these hours, please send us an email explaining your concern. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Please don’t text the out-of-hours number as we can’t see these messages.

As a volunteer, or someone involved in Girlguiding, you must know how to use the safeguarding procedure. 

In this procedure, you’ll find out how to use Girlguiding’s safeguarding policywhen you recognise, receive or report a safeguarding allegation, concern or disclosure.  

What is safeguarding, and what are my responsibilities? 

Safeguarding is what we do to promote the welfare of girls, young women and adults at risk, and to protect them from harm. 

As a volunteer, you have the same safeguarding responsibilities as anyone who works with children in a paid role. This is UK government guidance. 

You must report any safeguarding allegation, concern or disclosure within 24 hours of finding out about it, or sooner if it’s an emergency. If you’re not sure about the concern, report it anyway.

All volunteers must complete and maintain the correct level of safeguarding training for their role. And units mustn't meet unless at least 1 leader at the meeting holds a safe space level 3.

If you’re a member of British Girlguiding Overseas (BGO), speak to your commissioner about how to follow this procedure while respecting local laws and customs.

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What are safeguarding allegations, concerns and disclosures? 

A safeguarding allegation, concern or disclosure could be anything relating to a child’s or adult’s safety or welfare. Or it could be about the potential risk a person may pose to others.

It could include:

  • A young member or volunteer making a disclosure of abuse, neglect or harm.
  • Seeing, or hearing about, behaviour that failed to protect a child, young person or adult.
  • Seeing something in a person’s behaviour or appearance which makes you concerned about abuse, neglect, harm, criminal behaviour or radicalisation.
  • A concern about the behaviour of one child or young person to another. Inappropriate behaviour between young people is known as child-on-child abuse.
  • An allegation, concern or disclosure about a Girlguiding volunteer who has, or may have, behaved in a way that suggests they may not be suitable to work with children or adults.
  • A low-level concern about the behaviour of an adult volunteer, such as being over-friendly with young members, having favourites, or being alone with a child in a secluded area or behind a closed door. A pattern of low-level concerns could add up to a larger concern.
  • An allegation, concern or disclosure about abuse or harm that happened in the past. You must treat this seriously and report it straight away.
  • An allegation, concern or disclosure about an external visitor’s behaviour at a unit meeting or other Girlguiding event. Even though they aren’t a Girlguiding member, you must let your commissioner or the HQ safeguarding team know without delay.
  • An ongoing or past investigation into you or someone you have a significant relationship with, which relates to any child or adult safeguarding allegation, concern or disclosure. The investigation may have been carried out by the police, social services, an employer, or another organisation you volunteer for. Someone you have a ‘significant relationship’ with may include, but isn’t limited to, a family member, partner, or member of the same household. You must tell the HQ safeguarding team or your commissioner without delay. And commissioners must pass this information on to the HQ safeguarding team.

If you have to deal with a safeguarding concern, it’s vital that you understand your role, including what to say and how to behave. If you’re unsure what a child is reporting, try to ask open questions to get some more context. The TED acronym is a useful way to remember how to ask open questions: Tell me a bit more, Explain, Describe.

Remember, you should only share information with those who need to know, like the HQ safeguarding team or your commissioner. Having fears about sharing information mustn’t stop you promoting the welfare and protecting the safety of children or adults at risk.

Our a safe space training includes how to react and respond to allegations, concerns and disclosures. Refresh your memory by taking another look at what good safeguarding behaviours are, and the dos and don’ts of handling disclosures. You can also find these in our downloadable a safe space pocket guide, so you can have this information available whenever you need it.

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Here are the people involved with safeguarding at Girlguiding:

  • Our HQ safeguarding team manage all allegations, concerns and disclosures reported to us. We’re a team of safeguarding professionals with experience and knowledge of child protection, including legislation and sector guidance. We help to protect and support our members.
  • Our national safeguarding lead volunteer promotes all aspects of safeguarding across Girlguiding at a national level. They work closely with HQ to give support and advice. They also work with the HQ team on safeguarding projects and support the country and region safeguarding teams.
  • Country and region safeguarding lead and assistant lead volunteers support the country and region chief commissioners and give guidance to local leadership teams. They work closely with the HQ safeguarding team to manage cases in their country or region and make sure volunteers involved in cases are supported.
  • Our safeguarding panel are a group of volunteers with professional safeguarding experience. They carry out independent, objective reviews on safeguarding cases where an appeal request has been accepted.
  • Commissioners support volunteers and give advice and guidance regarding safeguarding allegations, concerns or disclosures. They’re a key link between the HQ safeguarding team and volunteers involved with a safeguarding case and may lead on actions required for investigations and handling honest conversations. You’ll find more information about this below. They must report any allegations, concerns or disclosures which are reported to them to the HQ safeguarding team.

Safe practice liaison volunteers give emotional support and a listening ear to volunteers who are being investigated as part of a safeguarding or complaints and compliance case.

How do I make a report? 

How to contact the HQ safeguarding team

If you have a safeguarding concern, report it.

Get in touch during office hours on +44(0)207 834 6242 ext. 3037 or email [email protected].

For out of hours emergencies, call +44(0)7508 032997 (5-10pm Monday to Friday; 9am-10pm Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays).

If we don’t answer your call straight away or it’s outside these hours, please send us an email explaining your concern. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Please don’t text the out-of-hours number as we can’t see these messages.

If you’ve seen something you’re concerned about, or you’ve received an allegation or disclosure, you need to contact our HQ safeguarding team as soon as possible. You must get in touch within 24 hours, or sooner if it’s an emergency.

If there’s an immediate risk of harm, you’ll need to contact the emergency services first. Find out what we mean by an immediate risk of harm further down this page.

If you’re not sure about the concern and whether you should make a report, report it anyway.

Reporting process 

Is there an emergency? Is there an immediate risk of harm? 

If yes:

  1. Inform the emergency services, i.e. the police. Then contact the HQ safeguarding team. 
  2. Complete a written report. Make sure to include names and membership numbers and email to [email protected]
  3. The HQ team will record and work with the appropriate volunteers, such as commissioners, to manage all allegations, concerns and disclosures.

If no:

  1. Complete a written report. Make sure to include names and membership numbers, and details of any actions taken. 
  2. Contact your commissioner or the HQ safeguarding team. 
  3. The HQ team will record and work with the appropriate volunteers, such as commissioners, to manage all allegations, concerns and disclosures. 

If you’re attending a joint event or residential with the Scouts or another organisation, there may be other reporting processes in place. You must still report any concerns involving Girlguiding members directly to our HQ safeguarding team. We can support you with concerns about non-Girlguiding members, so please still get in touch. Please don’t wait until you return from a camp, trip or residential to report a concern. If interim steps are needed, the HQ safeguarding team can help.

You can also find the reporting process and the team’s contact details in our a safe space pocket guide.

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If someone’s at an immediate risk of harm, contact the emergency services before you get in touch with our HQ safeguarding team. 

Someone would be at an immediate risk of harm if, for example: 

  • They’ve said they intend to make a suicide attempt immediately. 
  • They’re about to go to the place where alleged abuse or harm happens, like their home. 
  • They have a life-threatening physical or psychological injury or condition. 
  • A person who causes them harm is coming to collect them at the end of an activity.

If the risk of harm isn’t immediate, you must still report the concern to the HQ safeguarding team.

What do I include in a report? 

When you make a safeguarding report you should include as much information as possible, including: 

  • Your name and contact details
  • Your Girlguiding role, and country or region, if appropriate
  • A short, clear summary of what happened
  • Who was involved, including names and membership numbers, if you know them
  • Where and when the events of the report happened
  • Any actions taken before making this report

It would be helpful if you could also include:  

  • Any previous concerns you’ve had about the person you’re making the report about
  • Any incidents that have taken place and may be relevant
  • Any supporting documents and correspondence

When you’re reporting your concerns, remember: 

  • You must state very clearly if you’re concerned about the person’s immediate safety
  • To keep facts and opinions separate
  • To include if the person has received or needs any help

Make sure you’re sharing information safely by following our managing information procedure. 

Reporting an allegation, concern or disclosure can be stressful, so please let the HQ safeguarding team know if you’re struggling with this.

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I’m a young member with a safeguarding concern. What should I do?

If you have a concern about yourself or someone else, it’s important to speak to an adult you trust about it. This could be your parent or carer, teacher or your Girlguiding leader. They can help you find the right information and support. 

If you’re a young leader or helper at a unit, and a girl makes a disclosure to you, it’s very important to report it to a leader or another adult volunteer as soon as possible. Even if the girl asks you to keep it a secret, you should tell them you can’t because you want to keep them safe. 

If you’re worried about a leader or another volunteer at Girlguiding, or if a girl discloses something about people in these roles, you should tell another adult you trust about the situation. 
 
You can also email [email protected] directly for advice. Please copy in another trusted adult, like your parent or carer. Our HQ safeguarding team need to investigate any situation reported to them. But we’ll keep your report confidential, and only share it with people who need to know.

If someone has told you something in the past that you now realise is concerning, you can still report it. It’s never too late to keep yourself or other young members safe. Trust your gut and tell your leader. No one will be upset that you waited.

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What happens after I make a report?

Our HQ safeguarding team will deal with any emergency concerns immediately. We aim to respond to other reports within 1-2 working days, and we’ll always respond within 5 working days. 

Once we’ve received your report, our duty safeguarding practitioner will review it. They’ll assess the risk and decide on what action to take. They’ll respond to the report differently depending on its nature, severity and complexity, and the people involved.  

If the team decide to open a case to address the concern, we’ll give you, as the person who reported the concern, a safeguarding reference number for this.  

Our HQ safeguarding team may ask you, or another appropriate volunteer, to help with next steps. This could include speaking to parents or carers, or to the volunteers involved. We’ll make sure you’re appropriately supported to do this. You can find out more about this in the honest conversations section below. 

After our duty practitioner takes any urgent action, the case will be handed over to the allocated safeguarding practitioner at HQ, who will manage the case. 

It’s standard procedure for the team to notify the country or region safeguarding lead volunteer, chief commissioner, and the county commissioner about new cases. They can then give support to manage the case where necessary. 

Depending on the concern, we may not be able to give you specific details about the outcome of a case. But we’ll let you know when we’ve closed the case.

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Our duty safeguarding practitioner will take action straight away. This may mean referring the allegation, concern or disclosure to the police, Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) or equivalent, children’s services or adult social care. 

Our duty practitioner will consider whether we can do this without needing to tell or ask for consent from the child’s parent or carer, or the adult at risk. 

If letting parents or carers know about the report will put a child at further risk of harm, we’ll make the referral without doing this. 

If the concern is about an adult at risk of harm, the team will also consider if the adult is able to give their consent to a referral. We’ll make a referral directly to adult social services or the police if any of the following apply: 

  • The person meets the definition of an ‘adult at risk’. This means the person has needs for care and support (whether or not the local authority is meeting any of those needs) and is experiencing or is at risk of abuse or neglect and as a result of those needs can’t protect themselves against the abuse or neglect, or the risk of it. 
  • There’s reason to believe that a crime has been committed or will be committed. 
  • The person is at an immediate risk of harm.
  • The person needs urgent medical treatment.

The age of adulthood isn’t always the same. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, people aged 18 and over are considered adults. In Scotland people aged 16 and over are considered adults. For BGO, different ages will apply in different countries.

If our safeguarding practitioner makes a referral without getting consent, they’ll let the person who reported the concern, and the country or region safeguarding lead, know. Depending on the advice social services or the police give, we may ask the person who reported the concern, or another appropriate volunteer, to let the parent, carer or adult at risk know our HQ safeguarding team have made a referral without their consent. 

If we need consent before we can make the referral, we’ll ask the person who reported the concern, or another appropriate volunteer, to urgently speak to the parent, carer or the adult at risk, so we can make this referral. You can find out more about this in the honest conversations section further down this page. 

Girlguiding can’t stay anonymous when making a referral. But our safeguarding practitioner won’t give the name or details of the person who reported the concern unless the law requires them to. We’ll let you know if we do this. We’ll also make sure you’re supported if the police or social services tell the parent, carer, or adult at risk that the report came from local guiding. 

If someone doesn’t give their consent for a referral, our HQ safeguarding team will try to manage the concern in other ways.

If there’s no immediate risk of harm, it’s unlikely we’ll make a referral to the police or social care. But our HQ safeguarding team will give the person who reported the concern advice and resources to share with the young person, their family, or the adult at risk.  

If the concern is about a child and no one has told their parent or carer about it, it’s likely we'll ask the person who reported the concern, or another appropriate volunteer, to speak to them. You can find out more about what this might involve in the honest conversations section further down this page. But we’ll only request this conversation if it doesn’t put the child at risk of harm.

We may also ask that an adjustment plan or wellbeing action plan is completed with the young member and their parent or carer, or with the adult at risk. For concerns about adults at risk, you may also need to complete a risk assessment. Our HQ safeguarding team will let you know who’s appropriate to complete these with each person. Our HQ safeguarding team and your country or region safeguarding volunteer lead are both able to give support. 

If an adult at risk is behaving in a way that puts themselves or others at risk of harm, we may need to consider further action under our managing concerns about adult volunteers policy. Our HQ safeguarding team will work with local guiding to help support the adult in any way possible before we escalate the concern in this way.

Our HQ safeguarding team will decide if we need to take immediate action, and if we need to refer the concern to the police or other emergency services. 

Depending on the concern and the advice we get from statutory agencies, we may decide to suspend or add a sanction to the volunteer’s role, or roles. We use sanctions in line with our managing concerns about adult volunteers policy

If we decide to suspend a volunteer, they’ll be offered support from a safe practice liaison volunteer. This volunteer will act as a listening ear and go to meetings with them when needed. You can find out more about the support available for volunteers under investigation in our managing concerns about adult volunteers procedure. 

We may also need to refer cases to an agency responsible for managing allegations, concerns or disclosures relating to volunteers in a position of trust.  

In England or Wales, this is the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). The LADO is responsible for giving advice, information and guidance to organisations on allegations and concerns about adults working with children. They oversee cases and make sure different agencies work together. 

In Scotland and Northern Ireland someone in the local authority will take this role. And in BGO countries this will vary too.

When appropriate, the HQ safeguarding team will follow their low-level concerns procedures to respond to concerns which don’t meet statutory agency thresholds. Our HQ safeguarding team may begin an internal investigation. The investigator will follow our investigation procedure, and appeals and review procedure. Some internal investigations may also need a risk assessment to be completed with the volunteer who poses a risk of harm.  

If the investigation leads to significant concerns about the volunteer’s behaviour, we may apply a sanction. This could include their role, or roles, being withdrawn. For more information about sanctions, take a look at our managing concerns about adult volunteers procedure

Under some circumstances, Girlguiding has a legal duty to make a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), Access NI or Disclosure Scotland if we withdraw someone’s role(s). If we do this, our HQ safeguarding team will let the volunteer know.

We often ask the person who reported the concern or another local volunteer to talk to the parent, carer or volunteer about the concerns. This is because you’re likely to have a relationship that will make it easier. We recommend you have another volunteer with you for these conversations if possible. 

It isn’t always an easy discussion. Our team will help you find support, including from local commissioners and country or region safeguarding volunteers. 

The purpose of the conversation may be: 

  • To make sure a family knows about concerns so they can safeguard their child. 
  • To give a family or volunteer the chance to explain and respond to any concerns or allegations. They may take the chance to share concerns of their own or tell you about the help they’re already receiving. 
  • To ask for consent to make a referral to children’s services or adult social care.
  • To share resources that may help. 
  • To offer ongoing support to a volunteer, or a young member’s family or carers. 

If the concern is about an adult posing a risk of harm, our HQ safeguarding team may ask the local commissioner, or an appropriate volunteer, to speak to them. In most cases we’ll ask a commissioner or senior volunteer, rather than the person who reported the concern. 

The purpose of this conversation may be: 

  • To gather more information from the volunteer. 
  • To let them know about the allegation and give them the chance to explain and respond. 
  • To let the volunteer know we’re suspending them because of an allegation. 
  • To let the volunteer know the outcome of an investigation. This may include letting them know we’re withdrawing their volunteer role, or roles. 

Either the duty practitioner or the safeguarding practitioner managing the case will support and give guidance to the volunteer having these conversations. Country and region safeguarding volunteers will also give this support at a local level. 

They’ll also make sure the commissioner knows what they can share with the volunteer, and what must stay confidential because of the ongoing investigation. This’ll depend on the guidance from external agencies, like the police or LADO, about the concern. 

If we’ve decided to place a sanction on the individual’s role, or roles, a conversation must take place to tell them about this as soon as possible. Our HQ safeguarding team will follow this up with a letter to confirm the details and reason. The conversation must take place before we send the letter. 

Our HQ safeguarding team manages allegations, concerns and disclosures related to Girlguiding members and activities.  

If you have a concern about someone or something not connected to Girlguiding, you can speak to us for advice and we’ll do what we can to support you. We may not be able to make a referral or manage the concern. But we can let you know about other organisations that may be able to support and advise you. You can find a list of some of these on our support organisations page. You may also be able to find some local services to help. 

If you have a concern about a child or family who aren’t connected to Girlguiding, you can contact the police or children’s social care as a non-professional to report your concerns.

What if I don’t think the HQ safeguarding team has dealt with my safeguarding concern appropriately or to the standard I expected? 

Contact the team again, explain your concern and discuss the points you would like us to consider. 

If you still feel we aren’t dealing with it in the way you’d expect, you can escalate your concerns by contacting our HQ safeguarding team manager.

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Can I appeal the outcome of a case? 

If we’ve added a sanction to your role, or roles, following an investigation, you have the right to ask for an appeal in line withour appeals and review procedure. This procedure explains when we’ll grant an appeal and how it will work. 

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