Unit 4: Reporting

The reporting stage of the Safeguarding Cycle

Congratulations! You’re nearly half-way through this introductory course on safeguarding in the international development sector.

As this course has highlighted so far, safeguarding is a difficult and emotive issue, and there are many potential hurdles, myths and barriers to raising concerns, which can prevent them from being dealt with appropriately.

We have covered two parts of the cycle already:

• Identify – how to identify the different types of harm arising from the misuse of power, the indicators of that harm, and examining the vulnerability of children, adults and those who work with and for our organisations.
• Prevent – how to recognise risks to the people that we work with, how to develop a risk assessment to think of the safeguarding measures to mitigate that risk, how to recruit safely, how to develop a Code of Conduct, and how to use images and data of beneficiaries safely.

In this part of the course, we return to the Safeguarding Cycle and look at the ‘Report’ stage – what are the common barriers to reporting, how to overcome some of these common barriers, and what we, as Safeguarding Leads for our organisations, need to do to provide safe and confidential reporting mechanisms, support those who do raise concerns and support survivors/victims through the process.

What do we mean by ‘reporting’? This is when someone raises their concerns about someone else’s behaviour which they find concerning and they believe that person or someone else may be in danger of harm because of that inappropriate behaviour. Reports may come through informal discussions but must be formalised in a written form for next steps to take place.

In this unit, we will also look at the internal process within an organisation, the different ways that reports can arise (such as through a community-based reporting mechanism) and how organisations can make reports externally to relevant authorities, using a survivor-centred approach.

4.1 Common barriers to reporting safeguarding concerns

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The next three activities will look at the experiences of children, vulnerable adults, and organisational staff.

4.2 Barriers to reporting for children

Children are able to discern whether a touch or event makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

However, a lack of understanding due to age, developmental delay or disability may mean they are not always able to ascertain if the situation was abusive or not.

They may, however, be able to describe what has happened to someone they trust, even so it can be very risky for them and brave of them to take that step. Even when children know someone has abused their position, there are still barriers to listening to children when they disclose what happened to them.

4.3 Barriers to reporting for vulnerable survivors

This next video recalls the experiences of a vulnerable survivor of sexual abuse and exploitation who explains some of her reasons for not reporting.

4.4 Barriers to reporting for organisation staff

Organisational staff are also vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment but are often reluctant to report safeguarding concerns for fear of repercussions.

View transcript

4.5 How can the barriers to reporting be overcome?

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To ensure that we support a robust and confidential reporting mechanism in our organisation, we need to be more survivor centred.

4.6 What would we want?

View transcript

Sherine has a question: What should we be thinking about when we are considering barriers to reporting?

Watch the video above to find out.

4.7 Reporting frameworks

How to provide safe and confidential reporting mechanisms.

How confident are you about receiving reports of safeguarding concerns?

It is good practice for organisations to have a Designated Safeguarding Officer who has the authority to receive safeguarding concerns or reports and to take the appropriate next steps.

Many agencies have included mandatory reporting for staff and associated personnel, including partners, in their Codes of Conduct and contractual documents in an effort to improve the culture of accountability in their organisations by ensuring that there are consequences for inappropriate behaviour that breaches the Code of Conduct.

Consider the first question in this poll and give your opinions as you see it.

What would prevent someone in your organisation from raising a report?

Having considered how confident you are about receiving reports of safeguarding concerns, now consider the second question in this poll and give your opinions as you see it.

4.8 What should a reporting mechanism look like?

View transcript

Before you review in some detail the reporting mechanisms in your own organisation in the next activity, watch the video above in which Safeguarding Leads share their top tips for effective reporting mechanisms.

Organisations should have in place a clear and accessible reporting mechanism for safeguarding concerns to be reported. These should be open predominantly to staff and organisational personnel, including partners, to raise their concerns.

For a reporting mechanism to work and be effective, it should follow certain minimum standards. Examples of these include:

• A specific person designated to receive reports (often called a ‘Safeguarding Lead’ or ‘Safeguarding Officer’).
• Everyone knows and understands their responsibility to report safeguarding concerns.
• The availability of a confidential reporting and/or whistleblowing mechanism within or external to the organisation.
• A mechanism that be trusted and does not penalise those who raise concerns.

The next activity will help you think through how the current reporting mechanism in your organisation meets the standards within the international Enhanced Due Diligence principles developed by the UK Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office and the OECD Development Assistance Committee Recommendation on Ending SEAH.

4.9 Is your organisational reporting mechanism fit for purpose?

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Want to find out more?

If you are interested in reading more on reporting mechanisms, follow the links below:

Bond Safeguarding Report Handling Case Studies Resource

Organisational reporting mechanism pdf

PSEAH Index – English | CHS Alliance

4.10 Community-based complaint response mechanism

How to develop or improve a complaint response mechanism (CRM) to receive safeguarding concerns.

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What is a CRM?

A complaints response mechanism is a way for communities who benefit from your organisational projects and activities to raise safeguarding concerns and complaints. Safeguarding concerns, however, do need to be dealt with differently from other complaints since such concerns are sensitive and confidential.

The Core Humanitarian Standard which you read in unit 3 is a standard that has been signed up to by many international organisations working in the humanitarian sector. There is both a short plain language and more detailed version of the nine commitments on the website.

Under Commitment 5, communities and people affected by crisis should have access to safe and responsive mechanisms to handle complaints. Complaints should be welcomed and addressed. This would include the principle that complaints regarding ‘programming, sexual exploitation and abuse, and other abuses of power’ are separated from other forms of project-based complaints and escalated immediately to the safeguarding focal points at field level and/or designated safeguarding officers at senior management level for them to be dealt with confidentially and in a timely way.

4.11 How to set up a CRM?

It’s imperative that organisations have in place a CRM that is accessible, confidential and trusted by staff, partners and beneficiaries. It is an important step to improve safeguarding in aid agencies.

For more guidance on setting up an effective CRM go to the resource below:

How to Design and Manage Community-based Complaints Mechanisms (CBCM) | Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub (safeguardingsupporthub.org)

4.12 Using a participatory approach to develop a CRM

View transcript

Hasan likes the idea of promoting a CRM to communities but would like to know what else to think about.

Watch the video above to learn more about using a participatory approach when developing a CRM in communities.

4.13 How could you improve your organisation’s existing CRM?

4.14 Top Tips from around the world

View transcript

Watch the video above.

You will hear from some Safeguarding Leads from various INGOs, who highlight important points in their structures and procedures.

Consider what further learning points there are for your own organisation.

It is good practice that organisations include communities in developing complaints response mechanisms and support different ways that they want to raise their concerns that they are comfortable with and will use.

4.15 What is the benefit of ensuring that your organisation has a CRM?

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The case study below is a fictional one that provides some background when a CRM does not exist.

INGOs should positively collaborate to enable partners (such as CBOs) to work together to openly discuss concerns and incidents and jointly address them. When setting up any project, it’s important for organisations to have a full understanding of the cultural practices in that context to address any harm that may arise.

It is good practice for INGOs to have clear community-based complaints response mechanisms:

• Communities must know what to report and how to report on the conduct of their personnel.
• INGOs should collaborate with partners to develop such CRMs.
• Understand cultural practices without lowering standards of behaviour.
• Have strong relationships with community and religious leaders.

If the INGO and the CBO had been collaborating with the village head and community leaders closer to develop the CRM, reporting of inappropriate behaviour may have happened earlier and perhaps even prevented the rape from occurring. This situation could have been prevented by closer supervision of staff and partners and having in place a safeguarding focal point where concerns of Amadi’s inappropriate behaviour could have been reported to prior to the sexual abuse.

Training all staff and associated personnel on safeguarding is essential so that they know what the signs and symptoms are to look out for and how to raise concerns. Such cases are often criminal in many countries, however, if the victims and/or their family fails to report the matter using either the CRM or by other means, these cases are not pursued.

4.16 Reflecting on complaints response mechanisms in your organisation

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4.17 Unit 4 Knowledge check

The end-of-unit knowledge check is a great way to check your understanding of what you have learnt.

There are five questions, and you can have up to 3 attempts at each question depending on the question type. The quizzes at the end of each unit count towards achieving your Digital Badge for the course. You must score at least 80% in each quiz to achieve the Statement of Participation and Digital Badge.

Enter quiz

4.18 Review of Unit 4

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Congratulations on reaching the end of Unit 4!

You began by revisiting the safeguarding cycle and thinking about the importance of having effective reporting mechanisms. You considered the barriers that can prevent different kinds of people from reporting safeguarding concerns and what your organisation could do to overcome them.

You then reflected on reporting procedures within your own organisation and learnt about your responsibilities to complainants with an emphasis on the importance of confidentiality.

You studied some case studies, identifying what can happen when reporting procedures are ineffective, before designing and reflecting on what a reporting procedure should look like.

Now go to Unit 5: Response.