DBS hosts future of safeguarding event

On the 12th September, DBS held a Thought Leadership event entitled ‘Understanding Today to Safeguard Tomorrow’. The event was intended to encourage an open discussion with people from different sectors around future safeguarding, harm, and risk.

It was an opportunity for DBS to engage with professionals from different sectors and listen to and learn from their point of view, to help understand the potential safeguarding risks that might be present in the next 5 years. It was also a great opportunity for attendees to make connections with each other and increase collaboration between sectors.

The event consisted of 5 ‘big questions’ that were discussed in table groups, with a facilitator, before feeding back to the room at large, allowing for further discussion as a full group.

The questions discussed included topics such as AI and its potential for impacting safeguarding, the resources currently used to make safe recruitment decisions and whether this might change, and what attendees thought might be the emerging sectors that should be targeted in future.

Attendees were from a range of sectors, such as health care, charity, faith, education, and local government, and all brought a wealth of experience and useful insight to the event.

The event was well received by attendees, with feedback focusing on the well managed and structured discussions, the interesting mix of perspectives, and the value of hearing from others in different sectors and organisations. In addition, 100% of attendees who responded to a post event evaluation survey stated they would be interested in attending another similar DBS event.

Discussion points from each table were recorded anonymously by DBS notetakers, and these will be of great use for DBS moving forward, to help predict any future challenges and develop the necessary measures to address these.

Gina Allen, DBS Head of Strategy, Planning, and Inclusion said:

“Our Thought Leadership Event; “Understanding Today to Safeguard Tomorrow” yesterday was a great way for us to open our thinking for the future through the expertise, knowledge and experience of those working day in and day out in Safeguarding. We had a great mix of people who were comfortable in being open with us and each other about some of their concerns, thoughts, and hopes for what will happen in the increasingly complex area of safeguarding in the future.

As much food for thought it has given us about our future strategic considerations, we hope that all attendees found the event valuable in sharing their thoughts with each other and connecting dots potentially previously missed in a safe space. My thanks goes to all attendees for their contributions, but also to our own Partnerships Team for organising the day and our invaluable colleagues from across all areas the business who acted as facilitators or notetakers; without whom we would not have been able to hold such insightful discussions.”

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