Safeguarding is a practice
Safeguarding is how an organisation keeps people safe from harm caused by its staff, its partners or its work, and how it responds when harm happens anyway. Policies and procedures matter, but they only work when people use them.
What safeguarding covers
Safeguarding brings several fields together. We treat them as one system, because that is how harm happens: across boundaries, not neatly inside them.
The umbrella
Safeguarding
Everything an organisation does to prevent harm to the people it works with and the people who work for it, and to respond well when harm happens. It covers staff, volunteers, partners and the communities an organisation reaches.
Protection from sexual exploitation, abuse and sexual harassment
PSEAH
The measures that stop personnel from using their position, power or access for sexual purposes, and that make sure victims/survivors are supported and perpetrators are held to account. In the UN and humanitarian system, it is governed by specific standards and obligations.
Gender-based violence
GBV
Harm directed at someone because of their gender, or that affects people of a particular gender disproportionately. It happens in homes, communities and institutions, and every sector has a role in reducing the risk of it.
Children and young people
Child protection
Preventing and responding to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence against children. Children have particular rights and particular vulnerabilities, and the systems around them need to account for both.
Prevention, risk mitigation and response
Most organisations fund these separately. They work best as one holistic system rather than three budget lines.
Prevention
Stopping harm before it happens: safer recruitment, clear codes of conduct, training that builds judgement, and a culture where concerns are raised early.
Risk mitigation
Reducing the chance of harm in the way programmes and services are designed: where activities take place, who has access to whom, and how the people most at risk are consulted.
Response
What happens when harm happens anyway: safe reporting channels, working referral pathways, victim/survivor assistance, and case handling that holds up under pressure.
From policy to practice
Most organisations don’t fail on safeguarding because they lack a policy. They fail because the policy was never turned into something people could use.
Practice means the reporting channel is known and trusted. It means the focal point has been trained, supervised and given time to do the role. It means referral pathways have been tested, information is handled confidentially, and leaders know what is expected of them when a case lands on their desk.
That is the work we do: assessing where the gaps are, designing systems that fit the context, and building the skills of the people who have to make them work.
Safeguarding in the spotlight
Reporting and inquiries from across sectors show how harm happens inside institutions, and what happens when their systems are tested.
Aid sector and the UN
More than 50 women accuse aid workers of sex abuse in Congo Ebola crisis
More than 50 women said they were sexually exploited and abused by men identifying as aid workers from the WHO and major NGOs during the Ebola response, often in exchange for jobs. Most did not know how to report it.
Oxfam: regulator’s verdict on management and culture
The Charity Commission’s inquiry into Oxfam GB after the Haiti scandal found repeated failures to meet expected standards, weak handling of allegations, and a culture that put reputation before safeguarding.
Survivors and witnesses describe sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers, and how accountability mechanisms failed to bring perpetrators to justice.
Private sector
Sex for Work: The True Cost of Our Tea
Women working on Kenyan tea plantations that supplied major brands described being pressured into sex by managers in order to get or keep work.
McDonald’s workers describe harassment and abuse
More than 100 current and recent McDonald’s UK workers, many of them young, gave accounts of sexual assault, harassment, racism and bullying.
Education and sport
US prosecutors reopen case of alleged gang rape at Cornell University
Prosecutors reopened an inquiry into an alleged gang rape at Cornell University after a lawsuit challenged how the case and the university’s response were handled. Cornell disputes the lawsuit’s claims.
How abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar went unchallenged for years, and how the institutions around him failed to act on survivors’ reports.
Podcasts for practitioners
Conversations on preventing and responding to sexual misconduct, including in the aid sector.
Practitioners discuss sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, investigations, and safeguarding practice across regions.
Common questions
Is safeguarding the same as PSEAH?
No, but they overlap. PSEAH is one part of safeguarding. It focuses on sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment by personnel. Safeguarding is wider: it covers all the ways an organisation, its people or its programmes might cause harm, and how it responds when they do.
We already have a safeguarding policy. Isn’t that enough?
A policy is where safeguarding starts, not where it ends. The test is what happens when a concern is raised on a Friday evening in a field office: whether people know what to do, whether the reporting channel reaches someone, whether there is a referral pathway that works, and whether the person affected is supported. We help organisations close the gap between what the policy says and what actually happens.
Who is responsible for safeguarding in an organisation?
Everyone has a part to play, but responsibility sits with leadership. Focal points and specialist staff make the system run. Senior leaders decide whether it is resourced, taken seriously and acted on, which is why we brief leadership on what their role actually requires of them.
Does safeguarding only apply to humanitarian organisations?
No. Wherever there is a duty of care, there is a need for safeguarding practice. That includes governments and law enforcement, schools and universities, and private sector organisations whose staff, suppliers or services come into contact with people at risk.
What does a victim/survivor-centred approach mean in practice?
It means the rights, needs and wishes of the person affected come first at every stage: their safety, confidentiality, dignity and right to make their own decisions. In practice it shapes who is told what, how information is stored, what support is offered, and how an organisation communicates while a case is ongoing.
Can you help us with a live case?
Yes. We provide technical support to organisations handling live cases, from intake through to closure. We do not conduct investigations, and we cannot receive reports or respond to disclosures from individuals. If you need help as an individual, please see our Get support page.
Let’s work together.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or strengthening what you already have, we’re ready to help.