I was recently asked to quality assure safeguarding in a youth work organisation staffed largely by volunteers; the process has caused me to reflect on the nature of shared trauma in communities, and the risks to effective safeguarding this entails. My work on the QA project has highlighted the importance of trauma-informed culture and practice, which must take into account the experience of all parties in safeguarding: adults, children, subjects, injured parties and the organisational as a whole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the QA audit I met with adults and children involved to get a sense of how safeguarding is experienced in the day-to-day work of the organisation. The children I met with were largely very positive about what the group gives them and the sense of worth and belonging they feel there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was when spending time with adults that I came to understand the potential impact on safeguarding of collective anguish in a group. Almost all of those volunteering in the locality I visited have been part of the organisation since they were children themselves; they had progressed through the programmes on offer and returned as adults after they turned 18. As a consequence the adults had known each other well since childhood – with all the advantages and challenges those relationships inevitably bring. It emerged that over the course of the previous few years, 2 adult volunteers had taken their own lives whilst under investigation for safeguarding breaches in their volunteer roles. Each adult I spoke with mentioned the loss of these colleagues, and each linked the deaths to the ways in which safeguarding functions in the organisation. There was consensus in the group that whilst the organisation \u2018gets safeguarding right for children\u2019, more could be done to safeguard the adults without whom the organisation would not exist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For ethical reasons and for organisational sustainability, support and care of adult volunteers should be a priority for any such group. As a safeguarding auditor I am reflecting on the complexity of the safeguarding risks presented by organisational trauma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The network of relationships among a group of adults who know each other well are invariably complicated and often shifting; in itself this can weaken the culture of safeguarding in an organisation as loyalties can reduce objectivity in assessing risk. Additionally, though, when traumatic events occur the emotional impact can embed itself in the communal psyche of a group and members may internalise the effects without necessarily being conscious of doing so. The adults I met with were very confident about safeguarding in their organisation; they had no concern that their shared experiences have the potential to create safeguarding risk. None of those I spoke with recognised ways in which the trauma they had experienced could lead to, for example, over-vigilance or complacency in safeguarding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a safeguarding professional I am tasked to create a quality assurance framework which will take into account all barriers to effective safeguarding in an organisation. I am currently contemplating the need for systems which will allow organisations to identify cultural vulnerabilities and mitigate against them when they occur. This is a complex and nuanced enterprise for organisations, which calls for leaders to model detailed self-reflection and self-challenge; it also requires a willingness, in individuals across the organisation, to place safeguarding purposefully before\u00a0 personal relationships and organisational reputation.\u00a0 This is a tall order for any group and relies on strong, well-resourced leadership. It\u2019s essential that quality assurance systems are also trauma-informed and promote\u00a0 the support and training needed for a healthy culture of safeguarding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was recently asked to quality assure safeguarding in a youth work organisation staffed largely by volunteers; the process has caused me to reflect on the nature of shared trauma in communities, and the risks to effective safeguarding this entails. My work on the QA project has highlighted the importance of trauma-informed culture and practice, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadwithintegrity.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}