Management of Child Safeguarding Allegations

This guidance provides an overview of how to manage incidents and concerns where it involves a staff member, consultant, associate or volunteer from one or more agencies or partner agencies. The guidance will:

• Help a manager create a plan for managing child safeguarding allegations, both current and historical in order to provide a consistent and robust approach.
• Provide advice about specific issues that might arise within more complex safeguarding concerns.
• Provide managers with key information about how to give oversight, direction and leadership when managing a child safeguarding allegation.

It is specifically targeted at more senior managers who hold designated responsibility for overseeing such investigations. It should complement internal child safeguarding policies and procedures and builds on the initial work done by the NSPCC and Humanitarian Accountability Partnership – International (HAP)/CHS Alliance around Building Safer Organisations and developing model investigation protocols.

A range of tools can be used to accompany this guidance and can be found in the appendices. The guidance relates to child safeguarding and is not to be used for other types of investigations, but managers may draw parallels with responsibilities in managing other concerns.