Your key responsibilities

Every infrastructure organisation has different levels of resources, so the ways in which they are able to offer support will vary. A large well resourced organisation may have its own training programme and enough capacity building officers to deliver one to one support to any local organisation that asks. A smaller organisation may need to provide the same support by urging people to use resources offered by national organisations.

This is a list of things you must do, along with links to help and guidance, that can be a starting point if you don't have your own safeguarding resources.

• Support your members to be able to recognise, respond to and report abuse. Our understanding the risks and recognise, respond and report pages provide starting points and links to more detail.
• Highlight that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and help organisations to create a safeguarding culture across their organisation. Our what is safeguarding page is an introduction, our getting started with safeguarding page connects everything to Charity Commission expectations and our getting people involved page has a focus on creating the right culture.
• Help members access and understand key safeguarding legislation, and understanding good governance. Use our law, rules and duties page as an introduction to legislation and Charity Governance Code as a tool to support good governance.
• Challenge members if you have safeguarding concerns about their safeguarding practice. Report concerns about members to the relevant authorities if people are at risk. See our section on recognising the risks your members present and make sure you have thorough reporting procedures, using responding to safeguarding concerns from our designated safeguarding lead guide if you need support to review those procedures.
• Be prepared for members choosing your staff or volunteers as the first place to report a safeguarding concern about someone their organisation is in contact with. Although members should report directly to the local authority, the trust that builds up between members and an infrastructure organisation often means people will speak to you first. See the section on handling reports of concerns.
• Work closely with local area safeguarding boards for children and adults to represent the voluntary community and social enterprise sector (VCSE). See the section on working with local area boards and networks.
• Lead by example and model best practice. See the leading by example page.