Safeguarding Dashboards and Hubs make safeguarding administration and governance simpler for Parish Safeguarding Officers and everyone. Many of our parishes have already started to use this helpful tool, and the feedback from Parish Safeguarding Officers has been overwhelmingly positive.
To learn how a Dashboard can help you, please open the attached link here which includes a really useful short video. It explains how to get started, where you can find support and gives advice for frequently asked questions.
Safeguarding Dashboards
One of the benefits of Safeguarding Dashboards is that it can produce an action plan for your parish at the click of a button. This action plan has three levels:
- Level 1 - Safer foundations
- Level 2 - Safer activities
- Level 3 - Safer procedures
Based on the answers to some simple questions, Safeguarding Dashboards will email you a PDF action plan that is tailored to each parish. This action plan can then be discussed and approved by the PCC.
Safeguarding Dashboards also brings several other benefits for incumbents and priests-in-charge:
- It shows the status of safeguarding at a glance. Green lights bring reassurance that all is well. Amber lights highlight actions that need to be completed. Red lights help to prioritise the most urgent actions.
- It reminds you when policies need to be reviewed, or other recurring tasks need to be completed.
- It points you to the latest and most relevant safeguarding documents and resources.
Furthermore, by analysing statistical data across the whole diocese, Safeguarding Dashboards also helps our diocesan safeguarding team to focus their support where it is most needed.
Safeguarding Dashboards is entirely consistent with the Parish Safeguarding Handbook. It doesn’t create extra work for a parish; rather, it helps parishes to do the things that they ought to be doing already.
Recommended steps
Many of you have done this already, but if not, we recommended the following three steps:
- Please ensure that each parish has a dashboard ‘owner’. Each parish has its own dashboard – this is because each PCC needs to discuss and approve its own Safeguarding Action Plan. Each dashboard needs an ‘owner’ who updates the dashboard by answering simple multiple-choice questions. Usually this is the Parish Safeguarding Officer, but it could be a churchwarden or another PCC member. Only Gail O’Neill, DBS and Safeguarding Administrator, can invite someone to be a dashboard owner. If a parish doesn’t have an owner (or you are not sure) please contact Gail on gail.oneill@leeds.anglican.org
- Please ask the owner to invite you to become a dashboard ‘viewer’. Once a dashboard has an owner, that person can invite others to become dashboard ‘viewers’. A dashboard ‘viewer’ can see all the information on the dashboard, but they can’t update it. I recommend that the incumbent and churchwardens are dashboard viewers, but the owner can invite other people too.
- Please request a safeguarding action plan. This is really easy. Any dashboard owner or viewer can request an action plan at the click of a button. This action plan can then be discussed and approved by the PCC.
Safeguarding Hubs
Safeguarding Hubs are making parishes safer by helping them to meet the Church of England's safeguarding requirements. They are fully integrated with Safeguarding Dashboards, which are now being used in almost 6,000 parishes. The Church of England updated its Safer Recruitment and People Management Guidance in 2021. It includes mandatory requirements for parishes that came into force on 4 January 2022.
Safeguarding Hubs are helping parishes with safer recruitment and people management. Parishes can choose to use one, two or all three of these tools. Future tools will also help parishes with other areas of safeguarding. Role Creator People Manager Tracker Safeguarding Hubs work equally well on a mobile phone, tablet or computer.
We would ask you to watch this 3 minute video which highlights exactly how the Safeguarding Hubs will work. On this link is also a demonstration video on how to use the Hubs along with some frequently asked questions :-
Stage 1 is now available for you to use. An invite to accept the Safeguarding Hub has been sent out to all Dashboard owners. Stage 2,3 and 4 will be released in spring and summer 2023 and we will keep you informed when this becomes available.
We hope you find the Safeguarding Hub a useful tool for you to assist in safer recruitment.