Aid agencies working in development and humanitarian settings have a duty of care to prevent and respond to safeguarding concerns which may arise when they come into contact with people, be it staff, volunteers, board members, partners and suppliers. Successful safeguarding prevents adults and children from the risk of harm, of abuse or exploitation. 

When thinking about safeguarding, organisations should explore five key phases. The first phase is 'identify'. It is important as a safeguarding lead or focal point that you are able to identify who is vulnerable to harm. Usually, this means persons with less power because of their age, gender, or disability. 

You should be able to identify what the different forms of harm are and the various signs, symptoms and indicators of harm. The second phase is 'prevent'. Safeguarding leads should support their organisations to take proactive measures to prevent harm from occurring to people who they have direct or indirect contact with. Organisations should undertake risk assessments to gauge risks that may occur in their operations and mitigate against these with safer recruitment procedures, codes of conduct, training, safer programming, and a safer use of images and personal data. 

The third phase is 'report'. Organisations must recognise that there are many obstacles to survivors and/or victims failing to come forward to raise their concerns. Therefore, organisations must ensure that internal reporting mechanisms are safe, accessible, effective and responsive to the needs of survivors. If this is in place, staff, beneficiaries, and communities that come into contact with your organisation will be able to safely raise safeguarding concerns they have. 

The fourth phase is 'respond'. When safeguarding concerns are received, organisations and safeguarding leads must have procedures in place to manage disclosure of abuse from children, vulnerable adults and staff. A survivor centred approach where decisions are risk assessed and taken in the best interests of the survivor is paramount here. 

The fifth phase of the safeguarding cycle is 'learn'. Aid agencies should ensure that mistakes or slips made in the previous phases are picked up and improved on going forward. For example, improvements should be made to policies, procedures and practise, so that we can prevent and respond to safeguarding concerns in the future. 

We need to remember that, as a safeguarding lead for your organisation, you could be receiving or managing a safeguarding concern at any phase of the cycle. So, all phases could be at play at any one time. It's important to remember not to miss out on any of the phases, since by doing so, your organisation is at risk of being unsafe to children and adults that come into contact with it.

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You may come across different frameworks for exploring the issue of safeguarding but some of those with safeguarding responsibilities in the aid and development sector have reported that they found this one very useful. This is because of the way it focuses attention on some of the aspects of safeguarding that can otherwise get neglected. For example, the tendency to focus on reporting and responding rather than really thinking through issues of prevention or ensuing that any lessons are learnt and used to improve safeguarding in the future. It can also highlight who else needs a greater understanding of safeguarding issues, for example, if prevention includes recruitment, then who is responsible for recruitment in your organisation?