When Things Go Wrong — Effective Incident Management
What do you do when a safeguarding incident happens? — from the first 2 minutes through to reporting, recording, and learning. And none of it involves panicking! (Unless you run out of coffee)
- What are your immediate response protocols?
- How do you preserve safety and evidence?
- What should you record?
- Do you know the thresholds for notifying authorities?
- How do you support affected children and manage parent communication,
- Hopefully you won't need to but do you have a plan for handling media interest?
Effective incident management is a structured process for rapidly detecting, responding to, and resolving unplanned issues to minimise the impact, restore normal and potentially improved operations quickly, and learn from the event for future prevention, using clear roles, communication, and continuous improvement. Turn the learning into safer practice.
If a serious incident happened today… would your team know what to do in the first 2 minutes?
When things go wrong, the biggest risk is panic, inconsistency, or delay. The goal isn’t to be perfect — it’s to be clear, calm, and defensible. aka not Corporal Jones! IYKYK
This guide focuses on operational reality: what to do, who does it, what gets recorded, and how you protect children while you protect the integrity of the response.
1) First priority: immediate safety (not paperwork)
Your first actions should always be about safety.
Immediate response steps:
- Make sure the child/children are safe and supervised
- Remove any immediate risk (separate parties if needed)
- Call emergency services if there is immediate danger or injury
- Notify the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) / safeguarding lead immediately
Quick principle
If you’re unsure whether it’s “serious enough”, escalate anyway. It’s easier to step down than to explain why you didn’t act.
2) Preserve clarity: assign roles fast
Incidents feel chaotic because everyone tries to do everything.
Assign roles:
- Incident lead: coordinates actions and decisions
- Child support lead: stays with the child, offers reassurance, protects dignity
- Group continuity lead: keeps the rest of the group safe and engaged
- Recorder: captures key facts and timeline (as soon as practical)
This protects children and stops the response becoming messy.
3) Recording requirements: facts, not feelings
Your record should be:
- Factual
- Time-stamped
- Clear about who did what and when
- Free from speculation
Record:
- What was seen/heard (use verbatim where relevant)
- Who was present
- Immediate actions taken
- Who was informed and when
- The child’s presentation (distressed, calm, withdrawn)
Don't record your opinion, just the facts.
4) Notifying authorities: know your thresholds
Depending on the incident, you may need to notify:
- Children’s social care / MASH
- Police
- LADO (if allegation involves a staff member/volunteer)
- Your commissioner/local authority (for funded provision)
Our previous blog - when to call for backup - is a solid guide to follow but if you’re unsure, seek advice from your safeguarding lead and follow local procedures.
5) Parent communication: calm, clear, and appropriate
Parents need information — but not all information.
Good practice:
- Share what you can confirm
- Avoid naming other children
- Explain next steps and who is leading
- Document what was said and when
- Inform them of how and when you'll be in contact - no one likes ambiguity in these situations
Q: What if a parent demands details you can’t share?
Hold the boundary kindly: “I understand why you’re asking. I can’t share information about other children, but I can tell you what we’re doing to keep your child safe and what will happen next.”
6) Supporting affected children: safety, dignity, and follow-up
Support isn’t only immediate — it’s ongoing.
Consider:
- A quiet space and a trusted adult
- Medical support if needed
- Reassurance and clear explanations
- Follow-up check-ins later that day and the next session
- Adjustments to participation if needed
7) Managing media and reputational risk (without losing your values)
Most providers won’t face media interest — but occasionally this might happen, especially in public settings.
Core Principles:
- one spokesperson only
- no speculation
- protect confidentiality
- keep internal comms tight (no staff posting on social media)
If you have a commissioner/LA partner, align messaging early, you want to be seen to be with them not against them.
8) Internal review: learn without blame
After the immediate response, run a short internal review.
A useful review asks:
- What happened (timeline)?
- What worked well in our response?
- What made this possible (system factors)?
- What will we change before the next session?
Log actions and improvements in safeguarding software so learning becomes visible and repeatable.
9) Turning learning into safer practice
The point of learning is change.
Examples of “good learning” outputs:
- Updated briefings (“Here’s what we do if X happens”)
- Clearer role assignment during transitions/trips
- improved recording templates
- Tightened boundaries and comms rules
Q&A: effective incident management for activity providers
Q1: What’s the biggest mistake people make during a safeguarding incident?
Trying to do everything at once. Assign roles, prioritise safety, and keep a clear timeline.
Q2: What should we record if we don’t have all the facts yet?
Record what you know: what was observed, what was said, what actions you took, and who you informed. Avoid assumptions or opinions.
Q3 (longer): How do we decide whether something is a safeguarding concern, a behaviour issue, or a serious incident?
It’s not always obvious in the moment — and that’s normal.
A practical way to think about it:
- Behaviour issue: low-level conflict or rule-breaking that can be managed with your behaviour policy and doesn’t indicate harm, coercion, or vulnerability.
- Safeguarding concern: anything that suggests a child may be at risk of harm (including peer-on-peer harm, exploitation, neglect, or a pattern of worrying behaviour).
- Serious incident: immediate danger, significant injury, sexual harm, serious violence, credible threats, or an allegation involving a staff member/volunteer.
Top Tip: If you’re unsure, treat it as a safeguarding concern and escalate to your safeguarding lead. You can always reclassify later, but you can’t undo a delay.
Q4: What if staff disagree about what happened?
Record separate factual accounts and times. Don’t force a single narrative. Your safeguarding lead can coordinate next steps.
Q5 (longer): How does safeguarding software help during incident response?
In a live incident, the biggest risks are delay, missing details, and inconsistent reporting.
Safeguarding software supports you by:
- Giving you a single place to record the incident and actions taken
- Time-stamping entries to protect the integrity of the timeline
- Keeping sensitive information secure and access-controlled
- Making it easier to produce reports for commissioners/local authorities when required
- Helping you spot patterns across incidents (repeat locations, repeat triggers, repeat names)
It won’t replace good leadership — but it reduces the chance that a stressful moment turns into a messy, indefensible record later.
Quick checklist: incident response
- Make the child safe, then escalate
- Assign roles (lead, child support, group continuity, recorder)
- Record facts and timeline in digital safeguarding records
- Notify the right authorities based on thresholds
- Support the child and document follow-up
- Run a short learning review and implement one improvement