Director of Safeguarding and Professional Standards

About the Independent Federation for Safeguarding The Independent Federation for Safeguarding (IfS) is a professional body dedicated to empowering those who protect children, young people and adults. IfS was founded to ensure every individual with safeguarding responsibilities—particularly Designated Safeguarding Leads, Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads and Designated Safeguarding Officers—has the knowledge, skills, and support they need to protect children, young people and adults effectively. We provide training, supervision and support. Key responsibilities Safeguarding strategy and leadership ·  Develop, maintain and evaluate an organisation-wide safeguarding and professional standards strategy aligned with the IfS mission and Board-approved priorities. ·  Provide authoritative, proportionate advice to the CEO, Board, committees and executive colleagues on safeguarding practice, professional ethics, emerging threats, and sector developments. ·  Promote a culture in which safeguarding is understood as a shared leadership responsibility and concerns can be raised, challenged, and addressed without fear or favour. ·  Ensure that the perspectives of children, young people, adults at risk and people with lived experience inform relevant standards and improvement priorities. Professional standards and ethical practice ·  Lead the development, consultation, approval, and review of the IfS code of professional conduct, practice standards, and associated guidance. ·  Design fair and proportionate arrangements for receiving, triaging, referring, and learning from concerns about professional conduct or use of the IfS name and credentials. ·  Maintain clear separation between IfS membership decisions, employer responsibilities, statutory safeguarding activity, and the jurisdiction of professional regulators. ·  Advise on conflicts of interest, confidentiality, information sharing, procedural fairness, and the management of actual or perceived bias. Quality assurance and accreditation ·  Set technical and ethical requirements for IfS standards, accreditation, recognition, learning, and professional-development activity. ·  Establish proportionate quality-assurance, moderation, sampling, and review arrangements that support consistent and defensible decisions. ·  Ensure assessors, reviewers, trainers, and subject-matter contributors work to clear competence, independence, and evidence requirements. ·  Monitor feedback, complaints, appeals, incidents, and quality data to identify systemic risk and improvement priorities. Safeguarding arrangements within IfS ·  Act as the senior professional adviser for IfS safeguarding policy and ensure clear reporting, escalation, referral, and record-keeping routes. ·  Work with People and Culture colleagues on safer recruitment, codes of conduct, vetting, induction, supervision, and allegations-management arrangements. ·  Ensure events, online communities, research, consultation, training, and member activity are designed with proportionate safeguarding and participation controls. ·  Escalate material concerns promptly and ensure immediate safety takes precedence over reputation, hierarchy, or commercial interest. Learning research and policy ·  Translate learning from reviews, complaints, research, inspection, regulation and serious incidents into practical standards and member guidance. ·  Work with education, training, research, and data colleagues to maintain an evidence-informed professional knowledge base. ·  Contribute to consultations, briefings, and public positions, ensuring claims are accurate, balanced and within IfS authority. ·  Support cross-sector and international dialogue while making clear where UK law, guidance and professional expectations differ. Governance risk and assurance ·  Maintain a professional standards and safeguarding risk view, reporting material issues, controls, trends and recommended action to the CEO and Board. ·  Provide scheduled assurance reports and immediate escalation where risk, legality, independence, or public confidence may be compromised. ·  Support regular review of policies, delegations, decision records, information governance, and business-continuity arrangements relevant to the portfolio. ·  Cooperate with external authorities and regulators where legally required or appropriate, preserving accurate records and confidentiality. Leadership and collaboration ·  Lead and support volunteers, associates, interns, or technical advisers allocated to the portfolio, with clear objectives, supervision, and healthy workload boundaries. ·  Build constructive relationships with members, lived-experience contributors, sector bodies, professional regulators, safeguarding partnerships, and strategic partners. ·  Work closely with the CEO, COO, People and Culture, Education and Training, Membership, Data and Insights, and Digital and Technology portfolios. ·  Model calm authority, professional curiosity, respectful challenge, inclusion, accountability, and continuous learning. Delegated authority and accountability ·  Accountable to the CEO for delivery of agreed objectives and to the Board for the integrity of safeguarding and professional-assurance reporting. ·  Works operationally through the COO so that standards are embedded in systems, resources, delivery plans, and performance arrangements. ·  May access the Board or relevant committee chair directly when normal reporting routes are implicated, conflicted or would create unacceptable delay. ·  Exercises only the authority formally delegated in writing and refers reserved, high-risk, novel or reputationally significant matters to the appropriate decision-maker. ·  Maintains confidentiality, accurate records, and declarations of interest, while recognising that confidentiality cannot be promised where disclosure is necessary to protect someone or comply with law. Person specification Essential requirements Professional knowledge ·  Advanced, current knowledge of safeguarding law, statutory guidance, multi-agency practice, and professional accountability relevant to children, young people, and adults at risk in the UK. ·  Strong understanding of information sharing, confidentiality, consent, allegations management, whistleblowing, safer recruitment, equality, and human-rights considerations. ·  Clear understanding of the boundaries between a professional membership body, employers, safeguarding partnerships, statutory agencies, and professional regulators. Leadership experience ·  Substantial senior safeguarding leadership experience in at least one relevant sector, with responsibility for strategy, policy, quality, risk, or professional practice. ·  Experience of handling or overseeing complex and sensitive safeguarding concerns, professional-practice issues or allegations, including escalation and external referral. ·  Experience of advising Boards, executives or senior decision-makers and providing constructive challenge where evidence, ethics or safety require it. ·  Experience of leading change through others and working effectively across organisational or professional boundaries. Standards and assurance ·  Experience of developing, implementing, or evaluating professional standards, quality frameworks, audit, accreditation, inspection, regulation, or comparable assurance systems. ·  Ability to distinguish evidence, professional judgement, legal duty, and organisational preference, and to make proportionate, defensible recommendations. ·  Experience of using incidents, complaints, feedback, data, and review findings to identify patterns and drive improvement. Skills and abilities ·  Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain complex or contested matters clearly to different audiences. ·  Sound judgement, independence, professional curiosity, and the confidence to challenge senior colleagues while sustaining constructive relationships. ·  Ability to lead a demanding portfolio in a volunteer-led, remote organisation with limited resources, competing priorities and evolving systems. ·  Ability to maintain reliable records, meet agreed deadlines and handle sensitive information with discretion and integrity . Values and conduct ·  Unambiguous commitment to the safety, dignity, voice and rights of children, young people, and adults at risk. ·  Commitment to inclusion, anti-discriminatory practice, accessibility, and meaningful engagement with lived experience. ·  Demonstrable integrity, accountability, humility and willingness to declare conflicts, seek advice and change position when evidence requires it. ·  Commitment to the IfS mission and willingness to contribute the agreed time as a volunteer. Desirable requirements ·  A relevant professional qualification and current membership or registration with an appropriate professional body. ·  Senior safeguarding experience across more than one of education, health, social care, charity, faith, sport, criminal justice, or community settings. ·  Experience of professional regulation, fitness-to-practice, ethics, complaints, appeals, or disciplinary systems. ·  Experience of designing accreditation, credentialing, inspection, audit, or professional-development standards. ·  Experience of research, policy development, public consultation or publication in safeguarding or professional practice. Volunteer status This is a voluntary role. How to apply ·  A current CV. ·  A concise supporting statement addressing the essential requirements and motivation for volunteering with IfS. ·  A short example of a safeguarding, professional standards, or assurance improvement the candidate has led or significantly influenced. Closing date: 24th September 2026 Enquiries and applications: info@ifs-safeguarding.co.uk The Independent Federation for Safeguarding is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcomes applications from people with a broad range of professional, personal, and lived experience. Reasonable adjustments are available throughout the recruitment process.