Human Edge Insight Series
A reflection on how human experience intersects with safeguarding policies, people and capability within organisations.
What exists on paper is not always what people experience in practice.
Jasmine Luke | Human Edge Consulting
I have been thinking about the difference between having safeguarding systems and being capable of safeguarding the people those systems are intended to protect.
They sound like the same thing, don’t they?
Though, I’m not convinced that is always the case.
Policies, reporting pathways, codes of conduct, training, risk assessments and governance arrangements matter. They give organisations structure, consistency and obligations they can be held to. I would not want to work in a child-serving organisation without them.
And then I hear myself returning to another question.
What happens in the space before someone knows which part of the framework applies?
For almost twenty years, much of my investigative work began after something had happened. There were people to speak with, information to understand, evidence to examine and decisions to reconstruct. Often, there was already a child or family living with consequences that could not simply be undone.
The pattern itself is obvious, and one I haven’t been willing to leave unaddressed.
This work taught me that harm does not always announce itself.
Sometimes there are fragments.
Sometimes a change, a behaviour or a boundary that shifts.
Sometimes it is a thing somebody notices but can’t quite explain. A question they consider asking — and then don’t.
None of those things establishes wrongdoing, I want to be clear about that. And yes, sometimes they do.
Curiosity has to remain fair, and people deserve protection from careless conclusions.
Besides, suspicion sits uncomfortably within most of us, so what are our options?
There is a space before certainty.
And I can see where safeguarding asks us to become more capable there.
Before an allegation is established.
Before an observation meets a reporting threshold.
Before somebody has found the language that makes others take notice.
Before hindsight makes a pattern seem obvious, and before we ever wished we trusted ourselves above uncertainty.
An organisation really needs people who can say, I’m not sure what I’ve noticed here, but I think we should look at it.
However, that sentence can require a great deal of courage when the concern involves a respected colleague, a senior person or someone whose contribution to the organisation is highly valued. It would also be quite difficult when the person noticing is junior, or a person worries they will be seen as disloyal, difficult or an alarmist.
How, then, do organisations and safeguarding workers navigate this?
A genuinely child-safe culture has to make room for the question without treating the question as proof.
To me, this is what taking child safety seriously looks like. No one should be criticised for that.
And, it is where I see a difference between safeguarding compliance and safeguarding capability.
A policy can tell somebody where to report. Does it mean they feel safe enough to do so?
Training can describe indicators of concern. Does it mean a person can recognise a subtle change, or knows how to respond when they are uncertain?
A code of conduct can establish boundaries. Does it mean a gradual boundary drift will be noticed and addressed?
A reporting procedure can describe what happens after information is received. Does it mean the person receiving it will respond with curiosity rather than an immediate threshold barrier?
A Board can receive assurance that safeguarding arrangements exist. Does it know how those arrangements are experienced by the children and adults inside the organisation?
These are not questions to raise accusations, and I’d like to be clear on this.
To me, they become the questions worth asking because the existence of a process and the experience of using it are not necessarily the same thing. The majority of my policing career relied on asking questions to bridge the gap of understanding into outcome.
One particular sentence I hear in organisational responses also deserves particular care:
We need to speak with the child to establish what happened.
And there is an enormous amount of professional responsibility sitting underneath that sentence including:
Who should speak with the child?
What have they already shared, and with whom?
Is a police or regulatory process underway?
Is another interview necessary?
What communication support might they need?
What happens after the conversation?
Sometimes the first professional question is not how to interview a child.
Following a reported incident or concern, it becomes more important to establish when and who should hold that conversation, and whether it should occur at all.
So then, what are the considerations and how do we apply them?
A child is not reasonably expected to assess the skill of an adult questioning them, or determine the suitability of the questions, or any possible consequences of the process. The responsibilities belong to the organisation, to first establish, understand and then determine the appropriate responses.
And capability extends beyond one conversation.
If five pieces of information sit in five different places, who can recognise the pattern they might form together? If a staff member raises something that does not yet fit a reporting category, where can that observation go? If no concerns have been reported for twelve months, do we know that children are safer — or only that nobody has used the pathway?
An uncertain answer does not automatically mean an organisation is unsafe.
It means there is something worth understanding.
I find myself interested in the difference between reassurance and genuine assurance.
Reassurance can come from knowing a policy exists.
Assurance asks whether it works for the people who need it, including the person least confident about speaking, the child least able to explain, and the staff member least comfortable challenging authority.
That is a couple of different thresholds right there.
I also think about how we arrive at solutions.
Often, a question moves from a worker to a supervisor, and when the answer isn't immediately clear, further up the chain. There are good reasons for escalation, particularly where statutory obligations, risk or decision-making authority are involved.
But does every uncertainty need to travel upwards before we explore what might already be understood by the people closest to it?
Throughout my investigative career, I remained responsible for the decisions that were mine to make.
That didn't mean I needed to be the only person contributing to how we reached them.
Some of the most valuable thinking came from opening a question to the team — drawing on different experiences, cultural perspectives, observations and ideas that might never have entered the conversation otherwise.
We already recognise the value of collaboration in conferences, interagency meetings and professional forums. I wonder why we don't always bring that same openness back to the everyday questions arising within our own organisations.
Perhaps capability is also knowing when to look beyond the next person in the hierarchy, and towards the collective knowledge already around us.
The responsibility for a decision may rest with one person. The thinking that informs it doesn't have to.
What I do believe, is it takes people who notice.
People who listen. Leaders willing to hear uncomfortable information. Appropriate specialist support when the task requires it, and organisations prepared to connect observations, examine practice and learn from what investigations reveal.
I left policing knowing how much work can follow the point where harm becomes visible, and establishing Human Edge is my way of looking further upstream now.
I can consult, write and support organisations to explore questions such as:
What conditions make it easier for someone to raise a question they almost kept to themselves?
What helps a leader recognise the difference between a functioning process and a process that only looks reassuring on paper?
What can an organisation learn from investigations that strengthens protection before the next concern arrives?
I don’t have every answer, and I’ll never pretend that I do.
Instead, I bring experience, observations and questions — and a genuine interest in what others are able to see from where they stand.
To me, human-centred safeguarding is not safeguarding that is softer, it is safeguarding that understands the humans inside the system well enough to make the system stronger.
Perhaps the question for leaders is not only,
Are we child safe?
The question I like to ask is:
How would we know if we weren’t?
An Invitation to Connection Through My Writings.
My experiences matter. So does what others taught me through theirs.
I share these Insights through the experiences, conversations and people who have shaped my understanding along the way. Not because I hold every answer, or because my perspective needs to become yours. But because something I've written here may connect with something you've experienced, noticed, questioned or come to understand differently.
Whatever you take from these words belongs to you.
