Safeguarding Governance for Managers, Trustees and Directors

Safeguarding Governance for Managers, Trustees & Directors

Beyond the Safeguarding Lead:

Understanding Your Responsibilities for Safeguarding Leadership & Governance

8th December 2026 | 1pm - 4pm | In person – Online

Half-day interactive training (3 hours) | £80 per person

Safeguarding isn't just about responding to disclosures. It isn't just one person's responsibility. And it certainly isn't just about having a policy in place.

Your Safeguarding Lead may be highly experienced, your staff and volunteers appropriately trained, and your organisation may even have a designated Safeguarding Trustee.

But how confident are you that safeguarding is being managed effectively across your whole organisation?

Safeguarding extends well beyond recognising and reporting abuse. It involves the decisions organisations make about recruitment, staff training, supervision, professional boundaries, policies, information sharing, risk management and organisational culture.

You can delegate safeguarding tasks, but you cannot simply delegate away your responsibilities as a trustee, director or senior manager.

Why this training – and why now?

Safeguarding expectations don't stand still.

Recent developments in regulated activity and DBS arrangements, information-sharing requirements and statutory safeguarding guidance highlight why organisations need to keep their policies, procedures and practices under review.

The Charity Commission also continues to identify inadequate safeguarding oversight as a significant regulatory concern.

But keeping up with legislation is only part of the challenge. Trustees and senior leaders need to know whether safeguarding arrangements are actually working, not simply whether the right policies exist.

This course helps leaders understand what good safeguarding governance looks like, what questions they should be asking and how to provide meaningful oversight and challenge.

What will we explore?

We'll explore the practical responsibilities of trustees, directors and senior managers, including:

• Safeguarding leadership, governance and organisational accountability.
• The relationship between safeguarding leads, senior managers and boards.
• Safeguarding policies, safer recruitment, DBS checks and HR responsibilities.
• Staff training, supervision, professional boundaries and organisational culture.
• Risk management, information sharing, digital safeguarding and responding to concerns.
• Monitoring safeguarding arrangements and recognising gaps or weaknesses.

We'll keep returning to practical questions:

Are our policies up to date and actually being followed? Do we know whether staff and volunteers are appropriately trained? Would people feel confident raising concerns? And how do we know our safeguarding arrangements are effective?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, participants should be better able to:

• Understand their safeguarding responsibilities as trustees, directors or senior managers.
• Recognise the difference between operational safeguarding duties and organisational oversight.
• Identify the policies, procedures and systems that contribute to effective safeguarding.
• Understand the importance of safer recruitment, DBS checks, effective training and supervision plus professional boundaries.
• Ask the right questions, provide constructive challenge and recognise potential gaps.
• Identify practical improvements to safeguarding governance within their own organisation.

Who is this course for?

Charity trustees, chairs, safeguarding trustees, directors, Chief Executives, senior managers, service managers and anyone responsible for overseeing safeguarding within an organisation.

It's particularly relevant to charities, voluntary and community organisations, youth and community groups, social enterprises and organisations supporting children, young people or adults at risk.

You don't need to be a safeguarding specialist.

Nobody expects a trustee whose day job is accountancy, engineering, marketing or running a business to suddenly become a safeguarding practitioner.

But you do need to know enough to ask the right questions and realise that you have a responsibility to do so.

Practical, participative learning

This isn't three hours of PowerPoint or another basic safeguarding awareness course.

We'll use realistic scenarios, discussion and practical examples to explore both:

• REACTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES – What should leaders do when something goes wrong or a serious safeguarding concern arises?
• PROACTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES – What systems, policies and organisational culture should already be in place to help keep people safe?

You'll leave with greater confidence, practical questions to take back to your board or leadership team, and actions to strengthen safeguarding within your organisation.

“We don't know what we don't know.”

It's something we often hear from trustees, directors and senior managers when talking about safeguarding responsibilities.

And it's precisely why safeguarding governance matters.

Because the biggest risks aren't always the ones you can see. Sometimes they're the gaps you haven't identified, the assumptions nobody has challenged or the questions nobody thought to ask.

You don't know what you don't know. Let us help you find out.

Places are limited to allow meaningful discussion and participation.

As a not-for-profit organisation, our courses are subject to minimum booking numbers. If we need to postpone, delegates will be offered a transfer to a rearranged date or a full refund.