The Children’s Society

Carrying out a services review regarding risk and safeguarding

During 2018 we carried out a services review for The Children’s Society to assess whether management structures and systems provided strong practice leadership and oversight of risk and safeguarding in its work with young people. This important piece of work was designed to feed in to and help prioritise a subsequent series of operational audits.

In addition to desk research, the bulk of the insight for the review was generated via visits to six different services across England, face to face and telephone interviews with a wide range of practice staff, focus groups, and an online survey distributed all front-line staff.

Our final report highlighted key findings in relation to frontline practice, support and oversight at a local level, and overall organisational support, and made 13 specific recommendations for the future.

“Fiveways are an excellent organisation to work with. This was a sensitive piece of work and the report they produced was of a really high quality, with excellent analysis and clear recommendations. The feedback from the staff involved was that they were listened to and that Fiveways had a good understanding of the work they did. They delivered to our specification in an organised and accommodating way. They are excellent at communication, so problems are pre-empted and resolved before becoming an issue. I am really pleased with how this piece of work has gone and would recommend Fiveways to other charities seeking to review their services.”

– Dara de Burca, Director of Children & Young People, The Children’s Society