In October 2023, the Church of England published the National Safeguarding Standards and Quality Assurance Framework, which asks all parishes to assess their safeguarding work against five standards:
Standard 1 - Culture, Leadership and Capacity
Standard 2 - Prevention
Standard 3 - Recognising, Assessing and Managing Risk
Standard 4 - Victims and Survivors
Standard 5 - Learning, Supervision and Support
The upgraded dashboard clearly shows the progress that has been made towards each of the five standards.
Why are there extra lights for good practice?
The National Safeguarding Standards contain descriptions of 'what good looks like'. Some of these descriptions are mandatory requirements, others are good practice.
The dashboard initially focussed only on mandatory requirements. Therefore, to fully align the dashboard to the new standards, the 2024 upgrade introduces extra lights that focus on good practice.
Dashboard lights relating to good practice only appear in the Safeguarding Standards section of the dashboard (and not in the Mandatory Requirements section).
Where can I see our progress towards the standards?
The 2024 upgrade adds a new Safeguarding Standards section to of the dashboard. This needs to be enabled by your diocese, and it will be rolled out to all parishes in the autumn.
Once enabled, a button on the home page of your dashboard allows you to switch between the Mandatory Requirements section and the new Safeguarding Standards section (as shown below).
