Find out how to use the Safe Network's self-assessment tool to assess your organisation's child protection and safeguarding arrangements.
The self-assessment tool helps you work through the standards outlined in the Safe Network Standards: Core standards and guidance for safeguarding children in the voluntary and community sector.
Download the Safe Network Standards
Registration
To use the Safe Network self-assessment tool, you need to be a registered user of the Safe Network website. Registered users can also order Safe Network resources, receive our e-newsletter and take part in our online community.
Assessing your organisation
As you work through the self-assessment tool, you will notice that each of the four standards is made up of a number of elements. These elements are measures that you can take to help keep children safe – and meet the recommended standard.
For each standard, tick the elements you have in place then click the save button. This will save your progress and allow you to update your information at a later stage if necessary.
You can see your overall progress towards meeting each of the standards by clicking on view summary.
From the summary page, you can view a printable action plan that shows the elements you still need to complete. The action plan also offers advice on steps you can take to put the missing elements in place.
Using the resources
Next to each element, you will find a link that says, View advice and resources. Clicking on this link will reveal PDF documents to help you meet the requirements of the element. These may be sample policies, procedures, forms, interview questions, posters or leaflets.
View all resources provided within the self-assessment tool.
You will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer to view these files. Download Adobe Reader.
To save time, you can copy and paste text directly from the resource documents into new documents for your own organisation. To help you do this quickly on your computer, check the help section of your PDF reader software.
Updates to the standards and self-assessment tool
As government policy and best practice changes, the Safe Network team may need to update elements of the self-assessment tool. These changes will be incorporated into the relevant parts of the standards but will also be recorded here.
- Version 1.0: Launched 17 February 2011.
- Version 2.0: March 2012