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Unit 2: The importance of a safe organisational culture

2.10 Strong safeguarding cultures among leaders

Whilst this unit has presented the case for a strong safeguarding organisational culture, leaders may still struggle to know what this looks like in practice and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their own organisational culture.

Bond’s Safeguarding Leadership tool aims to bridge that gap. It is a discussion-based tool that support leaders to:

  • Assess their organisational culture in relation to safeguarding.
  • Understand what a positive safeguarding culture looks like.
  • Develop behaviours to help prevent all types of harm, including sexual exploitation, abuse and sexual harassment (SEAH) in their organisations and those associated with their organisations.

The tool is broken down into six sections, as shown in the diagram below, with each section focusing on different aspects of a positive safeguarding culture.

The six sections in the diagram are (1) accountability. (2) policies and processes. (3) do no harm/safer programming. (4) survivor-centred approach. (5) awareness raising. (6) safer recruitment and HR processes.

There is no set order to progress through the different elements, and leadership teams should start with what they feel is the most pertinent for their organisation.

Through a series of questions for each element, the leadership team will be able to evaluate their own understanding and practice, before considering the behaviours that the tool recommends for improvement.

The tool has a space to archive the learning and to facilitate further reflection and discussion.

Please visit the Leadership Tool now and consider how it might be useful in your own organisation.


Want to find out more?

For further reading on this topic, follow the links below: