Safeguarding Officer

Location: MSSC NSC, 200B Lambeth Road, London, SE1 7JY (Hybrid Working)

Contract: Full-time permanent

Salary: £39,000 gross, per annum

Closing Date: 16 March 2025

Application: CV & Covering Letter

Are you a Safeguarding professional looking for a new opportunity and challenge? We are currently looking for an exceptional Safeguarding Officer to join our expanding team.

The Marine Society & Sea Cadets (MSSC) is the leading maritime charity for youth development and lifelong learning. We are a vibrant and growing charity inspiring young people to achieve their potential through challenge and nautical adventure and also enabling seafarers and maritime professionals to realise their potential through learning and career development. Working with our employees, cadets, and volunteers, we have built a strong vision and five-year Future Ready strategy to meet the growing demand for what we provide, both for young people, seafarers and maritime professionals – and the thousands who aspire to be the sea cadets and marine professionals of the future. It is also about equipping them to achieve their potential and thrive in a rapidly changing world, while growing our charity to benefit even more people – including those from under-represented or marginalised groups.

About the role

We have an opportunity for a Safeguarding Officer to join our very busy team!

The organisation has a strong safeguarding ethos promoting the overall safety, safeguarding and welfare of all of our members. We are seeking individuals who have experience of the voluntary youth or community sector or other relevant professional field and have direct practice experience of working with children & young people in a safeguarding context. You will have experience and knowledge of statutory requirements, understand Early Help and best practice guidance, relating to the safeguarding of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Our safeguarding team operates centrally in London where we are responsible for providing support, advice and guidance to our volunteers relating on all safeguarding matters across the UK. Our safeguarding Officers act as our lead professionals in managing safeguarding casework in line with our policy, procedures and statutory duty.

We aim high and strive for excellence in our practices to safeguard children, young people and adults at risk.  We are continually evolving and seeking ways to improve and enhance our safeguarding practices and have a number of ambitious plans and projects to support this development as we move forward. 

Whilst this is a Monday- Friday full time position, a flexible approach to work and working patterns is a must, as is the ability to work effectively and respond appropriately in challenging circumstances. 

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Jane Sales, Head of Safeguarding & Young People Support on 020 7654 7022 or Stacey Attwater, Safeguarding Manager on 0207 654 7077.

Some information about the role:

• Support, guide and coach SCC volunteers to implement a local response to safeguarding concerns
• Effective and skilful management of an allocated caseload
• Lead professional – Allegation Management
• Action referrals to statutory agencies e.g. Local Authority Designated Officer, Police, Children’s Services, Social Care or equivalent across the UK (including DBS, PVGS)

For further information, please download the full Recruitment Pack. If you are interested in this role, please apply now!

For applications to be considered, it is essential that both a CV & Supporting Statement are submitted. Supporting statements should detail how a candidate’s qualifications, skills and experience meet the requirements of the Job Description and Person specification.

Without this, we sadly will be unable to progress your application for this role.

Benefits:

• 25 days annual leave per annum increasing with length of service
• Hybrid working for many roles
• Life assurance (4x salary)
• Private medical insurance
• Generous pension (employer contribution up to 10%)
• Cycle to work scheme
• Wellbeing portal and EAP with 121 counselling
• Employee development: We are investing in our employees' development and have an annual calendar of learning and development opportunities, designed to support employees to develop into their roles and stretch them to achieve their full potential.

Additional Information

MSSC positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates from all backgrounds. Equity, diversity, and inclusion really matters to us, so we can best serve our beneficiaries from every community. We work to ensure a fair and consistent recruitment process and aim to be a charity where diversity of experience, identity and skills are valued and welcomed. MSSC is an equal opportunities employer.

Safer Recruitment – We recognise our responsibilities to safeguard and protect the young people and vulnerable adults with whom we work. We do all we can to promote their health, safety and wellbeing, and we expect our staff to share this commitment and work in line with safeguarding policy, the MSSC’s values and ethos of inclusivity. We adhere to safer recruitment practices and therefore employment is subject to detailed pre-employment checks for successful candidates, including references and criminal disclosure checks and the completion of a disclosure questionnaire.

All successful applicants are required to attend safeguarding training and undergo pre-employment checks including a criminal record check.