Safeguarding standards with FCDO

Keeping Children Safe has completed a lengthy project with the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), formerly known as DFID, to help the department promote and assess safeguarding standards in the relief and development sector.
FCDO now has in place standards under the DFID Enhanced Due Diligence: Safeguarding for external partners that cover partner policies and processes on safeguarding, whistleblowing, human resources, risk management, codes of conduct and governance. These standards help FCDO to assess an organisation’s ability to prevent Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH).
Keeping Children Safe assessed safeguarding measures in 32 of FCDO’s biggest CSO partners, using the FCDO (DFID) standards, as well KCS’s International Child Safeguarding Standards, which are broader than prevention of SEAH, in that they address all forms of harm. They also focus on the specific needs of children.
In addition, Keeping Children Safe was commissioned to support FCDO to develop guidance on safeguarding children. This guidance builds on the enhanced due diligence safeguarding guidance. It sets out additional questions under each of the six policy areas for FCDO to consider for organisations delivering programmes that will involve them coming into contact directly or indirectly with children. These questions are based on the internationally recognised Keeping Children Safe Standards. They are designed to help FCDO assess organisations’ child safeguarding policies and processes to ensure their programmes and operations do not put children at risk of harm and to enable them to respond appropriately when concerns and incidents arise.