This article was updated Nov 2024.
Youth Employment UK is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people. As an employer, it’s important to understand what safeguarding means for you and your organisation, and what to do if you suspect a child or young person is being subjected to or is at risk of harm.
You need to have an understanding of your legal responsibilities and know where you can find advice if you have a concern for a child or young person.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding refers to the measures you take, designed to protect the health, wellbeing and human rights of individuals. These measures allow children, young people and adults at risk to live free from abuse, harm and neglect.
Child protection is a part of safeguarding, referring to the actions taken to protect children from abuse or neglect.
Who should employers safeguard?
Employers have a responsibility to safeguard children and adults at risk. Whenever we talk about young people, they will fall into these two groups depending on their age.
A child is recognised as anyone under the age of 18.
An adult at risk is defined as anyone over the age of 18 who has care and support needs, is experiencing or is at risk of abuse or neglect, or is unable to protect themselves because of their care and support needs.
What is the legislation around safeguarding children and adults?
For children, the Children Act 2004 is arguably the main piece of legislation that details the safeguarding responsibilities of local authorities in England and Wales. However, there is a large body of legislation that may be important depending on your role and place of work. The NSPCC provides a list of relevant laws for safeguarding children.
For adults at risk in England, the relevant piece of legislation is the Care Act 2014, which sets out governing legislation for safeguarding adults. There are also further government initiatives and legislation for safeguarding adults.
Legislation varies across the UK so it’s important to check the appropriate safeguarding and child protection measures in your particular country.
Employer Responsibilities for Safeguarding
Early careers outreach
Early careers outreach activities could include attending careers fairs, delivering talks, workshops or assemblies (in person and/or virtually), or taking part in immersive experience days.
To deliver these activities effectively it’s essential that your organisation has clear and robust safeguarding measures in place to protect young people from harm.
Review the set of audit questions for safeguarding during early careers outreach.
Work experience
As a work placement provider, you have an obligation to provide a safe working environment for work experience students and a responsibility to protect them.
You may choose to offer work experience as block placements and/or experiential ‘taster days’. In either case, you must have the appropriate Safeguarding Policy and procedures in place as you will most likely have students under the age of 18 or adults with care or support needs on site.
This safeguarding procedure will need to be shared with the school/college so the process is clear in the event that you have concerns about a student. You will need to have a delegated Safeguarding Lead and all members of staff should have appropriate safeguarding training to know what to do if a student shares personal confidential information that raises concern for their physical or emotional safety.
Safe recruitment, selection, and vetting procedures for appropriate staff are crucial when it comes to safeguarding for work experience. We recommend that staff who are delivering the work experience programme are DBS Enhanced checked.
Students should never be left alone during their placement, and we highly recommend their tasks take place in open spaces, ideally in pairs or in groups, and with more than one member of staff present.
You will need to undertake an appropriate risk assessment for students on placement. Under health and safety law, work experience students are your employees. The risk assessment will need to be shared with the school or college, or if the young person is organising their work experience by themselves, it will need to be shared with their parent/carer. When a young person starts their work experience placement, their induction should include information about how these risks are controlled.
Offering work experience is an excellent way to build your talent pipeline, but it is important to consider your safeguarding obligations. We would not encourage employers to keep in touch with work experience students via direct communications and would instead recommend employers signpost students to follow their social media channels, sign up to their newsletter, and direct them to their organisation’s website to stay up-to-date with opportunities for employment.
Review the set of audit questions for safeguarding during work experience.
Employing young people
In England, young people must be in some form of education or training until they are 18, and it is only then where they can take up full-time employment. Though young people can work part-time from the age of 13, the majority will begin to look for part-time work from age 16. It is important that you understand the law about children in work.
When employing young people under the age of 18, you have the same responsibilities for their health and safety as you do for all other staff. You must carry out a risk assessment before a child starts work and take measures to reduce any identified risks.
Many young workers will be unfamiliar with risks and behaviours expected of them and may need additional help and training to allow them to carry out their work without putting themselves and others at risk. If the young person is under 18, as an employer you must inform the child’s parents about the result of the risk assessment.
There is no blanket approach for Safeguarding Policy and procedures, as safeguarding in the workplace will depend on your organisation.
Review the set of audit questions for safeguarding young employees.
Safeguarding audit for employers
To support you with safeguarding young people, we have developed a set of questions you can use as an audit for early careers outreach, work experience, and employment.
- Do you and the member(s) of staff from your organisation delivering the activity understand their responsibility for safeguarding children and young people?
- Does your organisation have an up-to-date Safeguarding Policy, which outlines legislation, staff responsibilities and clear procedures to follow?
- Do you have a Safeguarding Lead in your organisation?
Early careers outreach (before taking part in activities with young people and in educational settings):
- Does the school, college or setting you are delivering activity require your staff to have a DBS?
- Has the school, college or setting you are delivering activity shared their safeguarding procedure with the member(s) of staff attending? (Please note, many schools, colleges and educational settings may do this on the day you attend).
- Do you and your staff know what to do if you have a concern about a child or young person at the event?
- Do you and your staff know the details of the key contact from the school, college or educational setting you are visiting? (Name, role, email address, contact number)
Work experience (before young people take part in your placements):
- Has the school or college been made aware of the safeguarding procedure you are going to follow?
- Has an up-to-date risk assessment been carried out and shared with the student, school/college, and/or parent/carer?
- Are the staff who are delivering the work experience programme enhanced DBS checked?
- Have working hours been planned for the young person on placement? Do they include the correct number of breaks?
- Do you and your staff know what to do if you have a concern about a young person during their placement?
- Do you and your staff know the details of the key contact from the school, college or educational setting? (Name, role, email address, contact number). If the young person has organised it without their school or college, do you and your staff know the emergency details of their parents/carers?
Employment (before employing young people):
- Have you and your staff received up to date Safeguarding training?
- Has an up-to-date risk assessment been carried out?
- Has a thorough induction been planned and shared with the young person?
- Will the young person receive a ‘mentor’ when they start?
- Has the Safeguarding Policy been shared with the young person?
- Does the young person know what to do if they have a concern?
Additional materials and training for safeguarding
NSPCC is the UK’s leading child protection charity. They have a range of safeguarding and child protection courses to support organisations and people working with children.
The Health & Safety Executive has information on key considerations for employers offering work experience, and employing young people.
The Institute for Student Employers has information on safeguarding students on work experience effectively.
Acas has information about working hours and rest breaks for young people during work experience. They also have information about pay and hours for young people and apprentices.
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has published an evidence based resource, ‘Key Facts About Violence: Insights for Keeping Children Safe‘. It aims to support violence prevention strategies, and to help you understand violence and its many facets.
