NFCC celebrates safeguarding milestones

An opportunity to look back on milestones and achievements – and a look forward to what comes next; that was the theme of NFCC’s inaugural safeguarding conference in Birmingham in March.

The conference welcomed fire and rescue service senior leaders, safeguarding leads and practitioners with a packed programme of speakers, insights, updates and panel sessions – plus the opportunity to network with colleagues from across the UK.

In opening the conference, NFCC Chair Phil Garrigan spoke about FRS leaders’ responsibility to ‘safeguard our own people and those in our communities’ and that a commitment to safeguarding was ‘non-negotiable’. He highlighted the amendment to the schedule Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions), enabling fire and rescue services to access higher levels of Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) checks more efficiently, as a step change in the sector’s safeguarding journey. But, he added, the journey does not stop, and that being receptive to risk, showing leadership, and embedding safeguarding within approaches to values and behaviours would enable FRSs to achieve bigger and better things.

Describing safeguarding as ‘one of the most demanding and complex areas of our work’, Donna Bentley, chair of NFCC’s safeguarding board, said that efforts would not only continue, but intensify, to actively reduce harm and protect those at risk.

In an overview spanning the past nine years, Bentley described NFCC’s safeguarding journey as starting as a conversation but becoming a movement. From an initial meeting in 2017, she highlighted the publication of NFCC’s safeguarding guidance for children, young people and adults in 2018, and the launch of the NFCC self-assessment toolkit in 2023 as major achievements – with the introduction of minimum standard DBS checks for all FRS staff and volunteers being one of the most strategically significant milestones so far.

Insights From Safeguarding Adult Reviews

Professor Michael Preston-Shoot, Emeritus Professor of Social Work at the University of Bedfordshire and Joint Convenor of the National Network for Safeguarding Adult Board Chairs, gave a fascinating insight into national safeguarding adults reviews analysis, highlighting the ‘human stories’ that lie at the heart of all safeguarding cases and reviews. Preston-Shoot spoke about the importance of a ‘whole system, whole person response’ of which FRSs are a vital part, emphasising the need for professional curiosity or ‘compassionate enquiry’ to uncover individuals’ underlying concerns.

Terry Pinto, head of prevention at Norfolk FRS and NFCC’s lead officer for technology enabled care, spoke about some the benefits and challenges of using technology to help safeguard vulnerable people, including the imminent switch from analogue to a digital telephone system. He highlighted the importance of telecare systems being tested as part of home fire safety visits, tracking domestic AFAs, and ensuring fatal fire reviews go back beyond 999 calls, to understand the circumstances leading to incidents.

In the afternoon, Pinto joined a specialist panel including Lisa Bryan, prevention, safeguarding and partnerships manager at Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service, and Ged Devereux, NFCC’s strategic health lead, to discuss how the sector has integrated safeguarding into a preventative approach.

The interview-based session explored what more could be done to ensure FRSs have the necessary processes and resources in place for effective safeguarding, including the role of the person-centred framework in identifying those most at risk. The session also posed questions around the role of technology as an enabler, variations between local authorities and FRS governance models, and the balance between moral responsibility and statutory duty.

Perspectives From Beyond The FRS

Lucy Whittaker, founder of Alpha Vesta that works to break the cycle of domestic abuse, spoke about the role the FRS can play in raising awareness to underpin prevention and early intervention; by partnering with organisations that share the same ethos, from their position at the heart of communities.
Delegates also heard from Cathy Taylor, acting head of partnerships at the disclosure and barring service, who focussed on the legal duty to refer when organisations suspect someone has been placed at risk.

What Good Looks Like

In the final session, Kevin Johnson, safeguarding lead officer for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and the chair of NFCC’s safeguarding practitioner group, gave an overview of fire cadets SAFER guidance – which stands for safer recruitment, awareness, framework, environment and reporting – and insights into how NFCC supports the sector in achieving the safeguarding fire standard.

In summing up, NFCC Chair Phil Garrigan thanked all those involved in the work so far, describing it as ‘phenomenal’. The day ended with a call to action for anyone working within a fire and rescue service or the wider sector: to continue to identify gaps in safeguarding processes, to feedback information, data and issues from which others can learn, and to continue to develop and maintain a competent, professional workforce where safeguarding is integral to all that we do.

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