Safeguarding has been at the forefront of my mind these last few weeks, particularly in terms of abuse that takes place outside of the home, but in places where our children should be safe. I am sure many of you watched the documentary ‘Football’s Darkest Secret: Survivors of child abuse tell their stories’ which included some of those survivors talk harrowingly about the abuse they suffered, as captured within the long-awaited ‘Sheldon Report’ published in March 2021. Likewise, there was the recent Whyte report following over 400 individuals making complaints regarding the world of Gymnastics. It is tragic that these individuals are only feeling able to come forward now and tell their stories, and their bravery is incredible. 

What is even more tragic is if we pretend that this is a historic problem that isn’t happening right now to a child somewhere. As someone who has been involved in Safer Recruitment training for a number of years, it still astounds me how powerful the training is, and how much it makes people think. It is not because its is gratuitously shocking for the sake of it. It is because the content is shocking. Children do get abused, and it happens in our schools, our sports clubs, our religious groups, our scout groups, our music lessons, and the list goes on. And that is shocking to hear and to accept. Wherever we have children, we have adults in positions of power, and thus there is the possibility of abuse. I know I sound harsh, depressing and cynical, however that’s the reality and part of the problem can be not acknowledging that. 

If we don’t accept that abuse taking place within our organisation is a possibility, then we aren’t doing enough to protect the children in our care. We have to assume the worst and then we can start to put measures in place to reduce the risk. We have to remember that abusers very rarely look like abusers – because what does an abuser look like anyway? Abusers look like football coaches, dance teachers, priests, nursery nurses, gymnast coaches, guide leaders…. they look like everyone else, except that they then have a uniform or a context that we imagine guarantees that they are safe. At this point however we are trusting that the organisation who employs those individuals, or allows them to volunteer with them, has done all they can to ensure that this is the case. 

And no, I am not just talking about DBS checks! They have their place and serve a purpose; however, they are one very small part of a much bigger responsibility that organisations need to understand. DBS checks as a start off only tell you what someone has been caught for. They tell you what someone has already done. They cannot predict the future, nor guarantee that someone has not just been really good at getting away with their abuse. I am talking about everything you do as an organisation to employ the right people in the first place, right through to keeping your organisation safe on a day-to-day basis. I can’t possibly say everything I want to (that’s why proper Safer Recruitment training is a full day of training!), however I guess I wanted to take a few minutes to maybe provide a bit of food for thought. 

If you run an organisation that works with children (or vulnerable adults for that matter) – and that doesn’t matter whether you’re a huge secondary school or a tiny charity then thinking about the adults who work or volunteer for you, how they came to you and what their responsibilities are is so important. A chilling quote from a Child Sexual Abuser, is a stark reminder of this:

“We’re really good at what we do, so do whatever you have to, so I don’t get across your barriers.”

We unfortunately can’t 100% guarantee that we will never have someone working or volunteering for us that won’t harm children, however what we can and must do is make it really difficult for them to get through the door, and then as easy as possible for them to get caught if they do something wrong. I often relate this to the burglar alarm. The idea is that when people first got burglar alarms, if it went off then everyone would come out of their houses to see what was going on – it was a powerful deterrent that probably guaranteed you didn’t get burgled. As more and more people got burglar alarms however, we got so that one going off is just annoying, rather than us running to the sound. So perhaps this is less of a deterrent. However, what we still don’t want to be is the house with no burglar alarm, because that still makes us the easy target. And thinking about this analogy linked to the subject matter of abusers, we probably want to be the house with the most high-tech burglar alarm, plus some security lights, electric fences and CCTV! 

We can’t deny that there are people in this world who want to harm children, we can’t do much to prevent them working elsewhere, what we must do is all we can to deter them working for us. That starts with the job advert and goes right through to having a culture which is open and transparent. It's also important to remember that just because you are a small organisation or club, this doesn’t make this less of a concern it should make it more of one. If I want to abuse children now, I am heading to the place that asks the fewest questions and that I imagine is the most trusting and the least cynical. I probably won’t apply for that job with the advert that mentioned safeguarding right at the top, however I may just start being really helpful at my local community run group, move to being a volunteer and then get a job through my stellar reputation and everyone talking about how helpful and pleasant I am. You get the point – abusers have often spent years having to overcome barriers to get to that one child who they can target, and who they know won’t tell anyone. We have to be ready to keep putting more barriers in the way. 

If you are a parent, or again work with children, we need to talk to children about this. Obviously not to terrify them, nor to mean that they don’t trust anyone or discourage positive relationships. However, we can have open and honest conversations with them about the adults they encounter and have discussions about the fact that we are not just talking about ‘Stranger Danger’ when we are talking about them keeping safe. The facts are that much more abuse is carried out by people that children know and trust than by strangers. Yet we tell children to be wary of strangers and don’t tell them that sometimes they have to be wary of people they know too. It’s those conversations about if something doesn’t feel right then tell me (or someone). If a child is telling you that they have extra jobs, or time with a teacher, coach, or any adult away from everyone else, ask more questions and gauge their reaction. It’s not about teaching your child not to trust anyone; it’s about teaching the child to also trust themselves and their gut instincts. If they feel uncomfortable or that an adult is making them feel frightened or asking them to keep ‘our little secret’. It’s about us as adults being curious and ensuring that the child understands that they can tell you if something is not okay. 

Unfortunately, abusers send out their fishing nets and then choose to target the fish least able to swim away. An abuser is not going to target the child who is confident to speak out, if the child next to them is unlikely to say a word. It’s sad but true that the abuser wants to get away with what they are doing, so that they can do it again. The more we can create environments where children feel able to talk, and the more we can encourage our children to feel safe to share their feelings, then the fewer the fish that can get caught in that net. 

This is the most serious blog I have written, but one I feel so passionate about sharing. The truth is that those of us who have been involved in the world of safeguarding and safer recruitment for a long time, were not at all surprised by the content of either the Whyte or the Sheldon Report. We know that people still don’t allow themselves to imagine that people in these positions would use them for such horrible reasons. The majority of people who choose to work with children do so because we want to help and support children, the last thing we want to do is harm them. It’s not surprising therefore that we don’t want to accept that the person sat opposite us in the staffroom or changing room could be capable of anything so awful. We unfortunately have to have this little bit of cynicism however and remember that:

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”

(Edmund Burke)

If we are not willing to believe that people who our children admire or respect could harm, then of course our children will not believe that they can. They will be more likely to let them put them in situations that make them feel uncomfortable, and they will be less likely to tell anyone. They will keep the secret, maybe until they are adults when its too late to stop the harm for them or the next person. 

As always, we need to create environments that are open and transparent, where positive relationships exist so that children feel able to tell someone if they are not okay, and where we feel able to show curiosity, kindness and compassion (with a little bit of cynicism!).

#justbekind #becurious #becynical #ourlittlesecret