4.8 Patience describes promoting the reporting process

‘Once we had established a central safeguarding reporting process, the next stage was to make everyone aware of it.

'We involved the organisation’s communication team who were very helpful with the use of social media and the website.

'We also engaged a group of young people to design a way to share the information with young athletes. They recorded a video, explaining the reporting process in a fun way.

'One consequence was that I started to get more calls and emails from people. Mostly they were asking for advice, but there were also reports about more serious things that our organisation needed to address. My workload certainly increased, and I had several cases that needed an urgent response.

'My manager’s reaction was that we were making our own problems by encouraging people to report concerns – and that this could damage the organisation’s reputation. But I didn’t agree. More reports coming in meant that incidents had already been happening, but people hadn’t known who to tell before our promotion campaign.

'For me, the increase in reports was a success and showed our new process was working and that the organisation is taking safeguarding seriously. That is good for our reputation. I think more organisations should speak publicly about their success in raising awareness and receiving more concerns, because it shows people understand and trust the system and feel safe to raise issues’.