Safeguarding in Risk Assessments
Including safeguarding risks in production risk assessments is essential because productions and events often involve environments, people, and activities that can create or expose individuals, especially children and vulnerable adults, to potential harm.
Prevention of Harm and Abuse
Proactively identifying safeguarding risks (e.g., unsupervised contact, inappropriate behaviour, exposure to distressing material) enables productions to prevent incidents before they occur. This helps protect all participants, especially minors and vulnerable adults, from physical, emotional, or psychological harm.
Duty of Care
Event organisers, production companies and broadcasters have a duty of care to all contributors and staff - including safeguarding risks demonstrates an ethical commitment to creating safe environments and reinforces public trust in the event/production and the broadcaster.
Collaborative Working
Safeguarding issues often intersect with health and safety, wellbeing, and reputational risks. Incorporating them into the overall event/production risk assessment provides a joined-up approach, ensuring risks are not overlooked or treated in isolation.
Clarity of Roles, Responsibilities, and Controls
Documenting safeguarding risks helps clarify:
- Who holds responsibility for child/vulnerable adult safety (e.g., the Designated Safeguarding Contact).
- Control measures are in place (e.g., chaperones, DBS checks, consent forms, supervision ratios, aftercare).
- How incidents will be reported, escalated, and recorded.
This transparency supports accountability across all divisions and departments.
Support
To assist colleagues in the completion of safeguarding risk assessments, the safeguarding team have produced an aide memoire* of potential hazards and controls you may wish to implement. Simply choose the appropriate hazard and it's associated control - copy & paste into your main risk assessment.
*Note: This is just a guide and you can identify your own hazards and controls as appropriate.
To access the aide memoire, click the button below: