Safeguard-Me Blog 2026

Delivering Summer HAF Programmes — Operational Readiness

2025-12-18 11:10

Climbing to the top of the HAF choices for parents

Launching and delivering a summer HAF programme at scale without losing safeguarding control is no easy feat. You need to cover:
  • How to translate DfE HAF expectations into day-to-day delivery;
  • Building a “single version of the truth” across multiple sites;
  • Food and nutrition standards;
  • Enrichment activity controls;
  • Partnership working with local authorities; and
  • Evidence all your outcomes and compliance

And that's just the minimum. You might already know most of this but there just might be some snippets below to help you hit the next level.

If you’re delivering HAF at scale this summer… how will you keep quality (and safeguarding) consistent across every site, every day?

HAF at scale isn’t just “more children”. It’s more handovers, more partners, more data, more pressure, and more chances for drift. The safest programmes are the ones that treat their programme like an operating system: standardised, visible, and easy to follow.

1) Start with the HAF “non-negotiables” (turn guidance into delivery rules)

DfE HAF expectations typically span: safe provision, quality food, enriching activities, and clear reporting. Your job is to translate that into simple rules staff can follow. We could write an entire article just on this but here are 3 simple steps
Practical approach:
  • Write a one-page “HAF delivery standard” for your programme
  • Define what “good” looks like for food, enrichment, and safeguarding
  • Make it the reference point for every partner and site

2) Scale creates risk through variation — standardise the basics

When you scale, the biggest risk is each site doing things “their way”.
Standardise:
  • Inventing their own processes for entry, exit, transitions between activities, food hygiene
  • What counts as an incident vs a concern vs a behaviour issue
  • How and when things are logged, who escalates and to whom
  • What parents are told (and when)
  • What evidence is kept for audits and reporting
This is where consistency is key. Digital safeguarding records stop your programme becoming a collection of WhatsApp messages and spreadsheets. But you also need clear operational procedures outside of recording what happened. Think about how you get your different sites to follow the same processes?

3) High-volume registration: consistency starts before day one

At scale, registration is where mistakes become systemic.
Key controls to build in:
  • Clear eligibility/booking checks (and how you handle exceptions)
  • Emergency contact verification (not just collection), testing it works.
  • Medical and allergy capture that’s usable on-site and passed to the correct site!
  • Making sure a site isn't over subscribed and ratios to staff become an issue
  • Clear escalation route for disclosures made during registration

4) Food and nutrition standards (not just catering)

Food is part of welfare. It affects health, inclusion, and trust.
  • Correct volume of food available at each site
  • Allergens labelled and cross-contamination avoided
  • Children with restricted diets and allergies (medical, religious, sensory) made clear to each site
  • Stigma around free provision and eligibility across the children
  • Food storage and temperature control
  • Behaviour and conflict around queues and portions, sounds silly but this is what matters to kids
  • How to handle situations where they refuse to eat?
Make nutrition operational:
  • Clear allergen process and labelling
  • A calm distribution routine
  • A “what if we run out?” plan
  • A way to record food-related incidents, eg refusal to eat, in digital safeguarding records

5) Enrichment activities: quality and safety at the same time

HAF enrichment is at the core of what you do, it's the fun part, it teaches skills, it's exercise, it's why you're all there. So how do you make it exiting with the right balance of safety
Delivery controls:
  • Employ the right people with the right skill sets, it's better to get the right staff than those you need to train up as this is only a short term seasonal activity.
  • Clear expectations on behaviour management and boundaries during activity from adults and children eg No 1:1 situations without transparency
  • Are the premises fit for purpose? Can you run the activities well or do you need to hire equipment or move sites?
  • You might want to capture photo/video of you activity for future marketing, do you have consent?
  • Do a risk assessment, plan for 'what if's'; agree what is a near miss, an incident and how to report them
  • Help your team identify concerning behaviour, pass that on to the the next activity staff member as a watching brief and then escalation routes.
If you can’t evidence what happened, you can’t defend your programme.

6) Partnership working with local authorities: make escalation crystal clear

At scale, safeguarding can fail in the gaps between organisations.
Agree in advance:
  • Who is the programme safeguarding lead
  • Who is the LA contact for safeguarding escalations
  • What gets reported immediately vs in weekly summaries
  • How you handle allegations, complaints, and serious incidents
Keep a written escalation map and store it centrally.

7) Outcome reporting: don’t leave it to the last week

Outcome reporting is easier when you design it into delivery. Capture as much as you can as you go, including anecdotal feedback. It's a lot easier to cherry pick information (the good and the bad) for your report from a huge set of information than trying to remember what happened at the end of the week.
Track as you go:
  • Attendance and engagement patterns
  • Enrichment participation and feedback
  • Food provision success and issues
  • Incidents/concerns themes (not just counts)
  • Actions taken and improvements made - showing how you improved as you went is a great marker for future successful HAF applications

8) DBS check status: keep it visible, not chaotic

As if we'd miss an opportunity to talk about this! You don’t need to turn HAF into a DBS admin exercise — but you do need clarity.
  • Maintain clear DBS check status visibility for regulated roles
  • Document supervision arrangements where relevant
  • Use us to make it a lot easier, faster and make yourself more reputable to the LA.

Q&A: summer HAF programmes at scale

Q1: What’s the biggest safeguarding risk when delivering HAF at scale?

Variation. Different sites and partners doing things differently creates gaps. Standardise the basics and centralise logging.

Q2: How do we keep consistency across multiple venues?

Use one delivery standard, one set of processes, one escalation map, and one method of recording incidents and concerns

Q3: Are food standards an issue?

Yes. Allergens, inclusion, stigma, and welfare all sit inside safeguarding. Treat food processes like safety processes.

Q4: What should we agree with the local authority before launch?

Escalation routes, reporting expectations, thresholds for immediate notification, and how serious incidents are handled.

Q5: What evidence should we keep for audits and reporting?

Quality standards, successes and issues, training/briefings, incident logs, actions taken, and outcome reporting — ideally centralised in one place from all the sites and capture as you go.

Quick checklist: HAF at scale

  • One-page delivery standard shared with every site/partner
  • Centralised incident/concern logging in digital safeguarding records
  • Food and enrichment processes treated as safeguarding controls
  • Escalation map agreed with the local authority
  • Outcome reporting designed into daily delivery