Covid-19 has changed a lot of our ways of working, which creates new challenges when considering people’s safety, and the second part of our events has focused on discussions around how to navigate this new landscape, where there is currently Safeguarding support available, and how this can be improved. As a result of these discussions, we have found that there are some region-specific needs, as well as common themes appearing across all regions. These common themes are:
- Lack of awareness around safeguarding responsibility and reluctance to have safeguarding conversations
- Building & maintaining relationships with local boards/partnerships & LADOs
- Lack of funding for safeguarding trainers/support
- Need for a list/bank of available safeguarding trainers
We would be keen to know your thoughts around this, do you think our findings are accurate? Do you think there’s anything we’ve missed? Come along to our final Every Person, Every Conversation event on Tuesday 9th November to share your experiences and find out more about the work we’ve been doing – you can sign up via our Eventbrite page. This event is open to all staff and volunteers within your organisation and your members as well, so feel free to share with them too!
As our series of events comes to a close, we are now moving into the next steps of this project. We are working with a research team at the University of Sussex who have been creating toolkit newsletters for Mutual Aid groups – we have commissioned further research which will help to create a safeguarding-focused addition of their toolkit, as well as supporting our work at NAVCA. We will keep you updated about this work as it progresses.
This next step of our project has also created an opportunity for you to work with us and get some funding for it! We are able to offer up to £3,500 to support four projects which focus on safeguarding awareness raising and/or support within your region – it could relate to the common themes mentioned above, or another safeguarding need you’ve identified in your area. The project needs to be additional to any safeguarding work you may already be doing, and the funds would need to be spent by Friday 11th March 2022. Proposals must be submitted via this survey link by Monday 22nd November 2021. This opportunity is for members only, and we will share the outcomes of this work in April 2022 when the project has ended.
If you have any questions or want to discuss any of this in more detail, please get in touch! I would be happy to hear from you and have a chat about the work we’re doing.
