The Parish Safeguarding Dashboards
On 21st September 2024, the Safeguarding Dashboards underwent a major upgrade to align them to the new National Safeguarding Standards. As part of this upgrade, several new dashboard lights were added to parish dashboards. This resulted in a drop in progress scores – not because parishes were less compliant, but because the dashboard was now asking more questions that parishes needed to answer.
The developers have provided a helpful summary of what has changed with the 2024 upgrade, including a short video.
Please see here for answers to some frequently asked questions on the upgrade to the dashboards.
Some new worksheets have been added to the dashboards to help clergy and PCC members in shaping a healthy culture. The worksheets are not mandatory but have been designed to help promote good practice in accordance with the National Safeguarding Standards. Worksheet 1A has been designed to help each PCC with the mandatory requirement to regularly review their church culture. The full list of available worksheets are available here.
The dashboard is a tool for all parishes. It has two primary aims:
- To make safeguarding simpler for parishes – and the feedback from incumbents and safeguarding officers who use the dashboards has been overwhelmingly positive.
- To measure and report parish compliance – with parish data being automatically collected.
There is a helpful video made by PSOs introducing the use of the Parish Safeguarding Dashboards. PCCs will find this the most useful tool to support the shared responsibility for safeguarding in parishes. The full video can also be viewed in smaller, bite-size chunks:
- Full video 12:43 mins
- Overview 2:48 mins
- Kirkleatham Case Study 2:24 mins
- Elements 2:18 mins
- Adopt 2:14 mins
- Opinions 0:48 mins
- Bishop’s encouragement 1:02
If you do not already have access, please email Sara Black to request a link your parish safeguarding dashboard.
The aim is to provide you with everything you need in one place.
For the year to 31st December 2023, those parishes working at Level 3 of the dashboards are not be required to complete the annual Safeguarding Audit but are asked to complete the Safeguarding Action Plan and Confidential Data Sheet (download below). From 1st January 2024 parishes will need to complete the full safeguarding audit each year.