Volunteer Senior Safeguarding Officer in London

This role is structural. Safeguarding is not a policy document, a checkbox, or a compliance exercise. In this CIC, safeguarding is the infrastructure that allows the work to exist at all. We work with:

• Survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA)
• Vulnerable adults
• Young people
• Ex-offenders
• Volunteers with lived trauma
• Communities historically failed by institutions

If safeguarding fails, everything fails. This role exists to make sure that never happens.

Purpose of the Safeguarding Officer Role

The Safeguarding Officer is responsible for designing, implementing, and protecting the safeguarding framework that allows the CIC to operate safely, ethically, and lawfully at scale. This role ensures:

• Survivors are protected, not re-exposed
• Volunteers are supported, not exploited
• Risks are identified early, not ignored
• Safeguarding is embedded into every system, not bolted on

About the role:

To design and uphold safeguarding systems that protect survivors, volunteers, and the organisation, ensuring safety, ethics, and legal compliance are built into every practice as the CIC grows. Safeguarding is the infrastructure that allows the work to safely exist at all.

Experience Qualification and Requirements

• Experience in safeguarding within charity, statutory services, education, health, grassroots or community settings
• Experience working with vulnerable adults and/or children
• Strong understanding of trauma-informed practice
• Ability to respond to disclosures calmly and appropriately
• Experience writing and implementing safeguarding policies
• Risk assessment and incident management experience
• Understanding of UK safeguarding legislation and guidance
• Confidence challenging unsafe practice at any level
• Ability to balance care with boundaries
• Strong judgement under pressure
• Clear written documentation skills
• Capacity to work unpaid and full-time during build phase
• Emotional regulation and professional restraint
• Integrity, steadiness, and clarity

Main Responsibilities/Key Duties

• Design, implement, and maintain a safeguarding framework that protects survivors, volunteers, members, and the organisation
• Develop and own safeguarding policies, procedures, and reporting pathways covering adults and children at risk, volunteers and peer supporters, digital spaces, storytelling, and online engagement
• Ensure safeguarding is embedded into recruitment and onboarding, training and supervision, programme design and delivery, digital systems and data handling
• Establish clear risk assessment processes for activities, campaigns, and content
• Act as the safeguarding lead for concerns, disclosures, and incidents, ensuring timely, appropriate responses, accurate recording, and correct escalation to statutory agencies where required
• Build systems that prevent re-exposure, re-traumatisation, or exploitation of survivors
• Ensure volunteers are supported, supervised, and not placed in unsafe or inappropriate roles
• Advise leadership on safeguarding risks, capacity limits, and ethical boundaries
• Deliver safeguarding guidance and training proportionate to role and risk
• Monitor safeguarding practice across teams and intervene early where drift appears
• Work closely with Digital, Membership, Fundraising, and Social teams to manage risk in storytelling, online engagement, and data use
• Maintain professional distance and emotional steadiness when handling complex situations
• Review and update safeguarding systems as the CIC scales
• Contribute to external accountability and transparency where appropriate

You must

• Be able to commit 80% dedication during the build phase
• Be comfortable working unpaid while the CIC is being built
• Be emotionally grounded and maintain professional boundaries
• Understand trauma without centring yourself
• Be able to hold complexity without collapsing into control or avoidance

You should have experience in some of the following

• Safeguarding (statutory, charity, education, health, or grassroots)
• Working with vulnerable adults and/or children
• Trauma-informed practice
• Policy development and implementation
• Risk assessment and incident management

Formal qualifications are welcome but not essential. Integrity, clarity, and steadiness are.

This role is not for you if:

• You want safeguarding to be 'light touch'
• You avoid difficult conversations
• You seek authority without responsibility
• You are uncomfortable challenging leadership when needed
• You are looking for a title rather than accountability

What You Gain

• A founding leadership role in a CIC tackling real harm
• The chance to build safeguarding the right way
• Influence over how protection, care, and accountability coexist
• The opportunity to shape a future paid safeguarding role
• Deep purpose-driven work that actually protects people

As the CIC scales, this role is expected to evolve into a paid senior safeguarding position, shaped by the person who built it. Formal qualifications are not required, but desirable. Essential equivalent experience is mandatory.