Child Safeguarding Statement and Risk Assessment Templates

Before preparing your Child Safeguarding Statement, you must undertake an assessment of any potential for harm to a child availing of your service. The risks you are assessing should be based on “harm” as defined in the Children First Act 2015.

A Child Safeguarding Statement is a written statement that specifies the service being provided and the principles and procedures to be observed in order to ensure, as far as practicable, that a child availing of the service is safe from harm. It should set out any potential risk of “harm” to a child that you have identified in your risk assessment, and procedures in place to reduce the identified risks, as specified in section 11 (3) of the Children First Act 2015.

Upon completion, the Child Safeguarding Statement must be furnished to all of your members. It must be displayed in a prominent place and made available to parents and guardians, and members of the public upon request.

Tusla’s Child Safeguarding: A guide for policy, procedure and practice is designed as a best practice guide to help anyone who provides a service to children and families to develop guiding principles and child safeguarding procedures to keep children and young people using their services safe from harm.

The following documents will support you in completing a child safeguarding statement and risk assessment:

These short videos for organisations explain who has to have a child safeguarding statement as well as the information that has to be included in a child safeguarding statement, and what is a risk assessment.