When managing safeguarding in a programme or project, aid workers have a lot to think about.
Most organisational policies tend to only talk about ‘top lines’ regarding organisational commitments, leaving those working in the field to interpret these commitments into realistic actions to ensure programmes are safe.
To help learners with how to implement organisational policies in their work, this course has mapped the journey by way of a ‘safeguarding cycle’.
NARRATOR: Safeguarding in organisations can be explained in a cycle with five different phases. These are identify, prevent, report and respond, accountability, monitor and learn. The cycle is helpful, as it can illustrate the journey an organisation
takes in embedding safeguarding policies, procedures, and culture within the organisation.
Identify. It's important as a safeguarding lead or focal point that you are able to identify risks of harm to those who are vulnerable. We should also be aware of the different forms of harm and how they may be indicated. When we are able to identify
the different forms of harm, we are in a better position to prevent and respond when it does occur.
Prevent. Organisations should take proactive measures to prevent harm from occurring to people with whom it has contact. This contact could be direct, for example, face to face, or indirect, for example, using online platforms, handling images or
personal data, or when working through partner organisations. There are many preventative measures that organisations can take, using tools such as a risk assessment, and implementing mitigations, such as safe recruitment and onboarding, safe
programming, a clear code of conduct, refresher training, and developing an inclusive safeguarding culture.
Reports and respond. Organisations must ensure that reporting and complaints mechanisms are safe, accessible, effective, and responsive, to enable staff, beneficiaries, and communities to raise their concerns about their behaviour and conduct. When
safeguarding concerns are received, the organisations must have clear procedures in place to manage disclosure of abuse from children, vulnerable adults, and staff. The focus should be on how to respond and support survivors and others when complaints
are received. This could include ensuring that organisations have already undertaken a mapping exercise of available
support services, such as psychosocial support and counselling, sexual and reproductive health, legal advice and support, available safe houses. Decisions should be taken in the best interest of the survivors or victims.
Accountability. It's really important that organisations include in their policies and communications that they have zero tolerance against all forms of harm, particularly sexual exploitation, abuse, and sexual harassment. This means that organisations
will act when concerns are reported to them and that those who have breached the organisational policies and code of conduct will be held to account for inappropriate behaviour including, sexual misconduct, which could lead to termination of employment
or contracts. Organisations must ensure that impartial investigations are carried out, and, if allegations are upheld against the perpetrator, then disciplinary processes will take place for staff.
Monitor and learn. Throughout the safeguarding journey, international aid organisations should ensure that they have put mechanisms in place to monitor the progress of implementation of policies and procedures. Organisations should also ensure that
they are learning from near misses. For example, when harm could have occurred, and therefore should make more of an effort to strengthen safeguarding measures. They could hold a learning review after an investigation to reflect on what went well
and what could have been done differently.
Organisations should also monitor their safeguarding culture, for example, how confident are beneficiaries and staff to raise their concerns, and how many concerns have actually been received and properly dealt with. At all times, organisations should
celebrate their successes, as well as learning from their mistakes to prevent them from happening again. These phases of the safeguarding cycle could also be used as a blueprint for policies and procedures based on international safeguarding standards.
This would support organisations to monitor their implementation of these documents and ensure that they are properly understood by staff and associated personnel alike.
Watch the video above, and as you do, think about what you would include in the different components of the phases of the cycle.
You will note that the ‘safeguarding cycle’ follows a similar template to the ‘project management cycle’ (PMC), which many of us working in development or humanitarian sectors may already be familiar with.
PMC is a project management approach that addresses the complexities of a project through all its phases while maintaining alignment with the strategy and objectives agreed upon by stakeholders (for example, donors, partners, the community) at the outset.
PMC helps structure and determine the phases of the project, as well as how to approach tasks in those phases. Using the PMC approach, we hope that this will help you better understand how to incorporate safeguarding principles into the work that you
do during your projects and activities.
We explore more of this later in the course. We will also explore how to implement the various safeguarding principles, standards and tools against this backdrop.
The safeguarding journey
People working in or representing organisations possess power and influence over others for a variety of reasons: their gender, race, role/position in the organisation, employment status, nationality, language and education.
Most of those who are in leadership positions, for example, make decisions on who receives jobs, services and resources, and could misuse this power for their own advantage or gain.
People with less power are usually those who are already vulnerable, either because of personal circumstances such as age, ethnicity, disability, role/position, employment status, nationality (or lack of), language and education, as well as possibly external
circumstances such as displacement, armed conflict, or lack of opportunities to have their voices heard or trusted.
Keeping people safe when working with vulnerable communities can be seen as a journey. It takes attitudinal and behavioural changes, and that’s not easy to do, especially if we as aid workers have greater power than others that we work with. This is why
safeguarding is seen as an organisational journey and using standards and tools will support our work to be safer for the communities that we serve and support, as well as ensuring they are viewed and treated as partners in this endeavour.
