8.4 Developing a safeguarding Action Plan

Once you have identified any gaps in safeguarding, it’s important that your organisation develops a safeguarding Action Plan which will capture all the areas that need to be prioritised and covered.

An Action Plan is a simple way for an organisation to identify priorities and monitor progress across the full range of safeguarding plans and actions. It should be used to help your organisation plan and prioritise work.

An overall Action Plan will detail the steps you need to take to strengthen and embed safeguarding. The plan needs to make clear what needs to be done, by when, and by who.

Over time, actions may become more specific. Some actions can only be identified after areas of risk have been identified.

Let’s hear from Patience again as she describes her safeguarding Action Plan.

Patience’s Action Plan

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A female safeguarding lead.

Listen to Patience talking about her safeguarding Action Plan. How did developing the plan help her? What kinds of safeguarding actions did she include?

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Transcript

My organisation’s safeguarding Action Plan was one of the most useful documents we developed. It gives us an overview of all the organisation’s safeguarding activities and plans in one place. Once the relevant safeguarding activities were included, it was great to feel clearer about what we were already doing, as well as keeping on top of planned actions.

The document is ‘live’, it is updated monthly. Some of the actions in it refer to things we already do and will carry on doing, like requiring our coaches to have safeguarding training. Others were very new to us, like introducing safer recruitment.

Priority actions, like developing our safeguarding policy, are highlighted, with details of who would be involved, the timescales, and implications for staff time and finance.

An Action Plan is a relatively simple way for leaders to review our safeguarding progress, identify problems, and allocate resources. I’d definitely recommend you develop a plan like this.

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What did you notice?

Patience found that her Action Plan provided an overview of all the safeguarding work needed across the organisation. Having an Action Plan that she updated, helped to prioritise safeguarding activities and provided an easy way to share progress – and challenges – with senior managers.