Strategic Safeguarding Trustee Child Protection

Bexley Moorings Project is seeking a Safeguarding Lead Trustee to provide strategic oversight and expert guidance on child protection. Join our board to help safeguard young people aged 8–17 across Bexley and strengthen a trusted charity's governance

What difference will you make?

As a trustee with safeguarding expertise, you can help ensure our Board oversees the organisation's safeguarding practice with real confidence and authority, rather than relying solely on assurances from the executive team. At a time when the number of children requiring safeguarding intervention is as high as it has ever been, that level of independent, informed scrutiny is not a luxury — it is essential to keeping children safe.

In the coming year, we anticipate reviewing and strengthening our safeguarding policies and procedures to ensure they reflect current legislation and best practice. As Safeguarding Trustee, you would lead this work, potentially chairing our Safeguarding Subcommittee and giving the Board the confidence that our policies are not just compliant on paper, but genuinely fit for the realities our staff face on the ground.

We are also working to strengthen the pipeline between frontline safeguarding concerns and Board-level oversight.

Your role would help close that gap — creating a clear, independent escalation route so that when something serious arises, including concerns involving staff or volunteers, it reaches the right people quickly and is handled with the rigour it deserves.

As our caseload grows, so does the pressure on our Designated Safeguarding Lead and frontline team. You would work directly with them, offering an experienced second perspective on complex cases and decisions, and helping the Board understand where safeguarding capacity is being stretched before it becomes a risk — influencing decisions on resourcing, training and supervision at the point where they matter most.

You would also help us stay ahead of a shifting external landscape. Safeguarding legislation, statutory guidance and local partnership requirements continue to evolve, and your expertise would help the organisation anticipate change rather than scramble to respond to it.

Ultimately, this role sits at the point where governance meets protection. Every policy you help shape, every case you help scrutinise, and every question you ask in the boardroom has a direct line to a child's safety. For a 40-year-old charity supporting some of Bexley's most vulnerable young people through a period of real change, your judgement and expertise would help ensure that as we grow, safeguarding never becomes an afterthought — it remains the foundation everything else is built on.

What are we looking for?

Skills And Experience We're Looking For

We are looking for someone with a genuine, demonstrable understanding of safeguarding practice — this could come from a career in social work, education, healthcare, policing, law, or a senior safeguarding role within another charity or public sector organisation. Formal qualifications in safeguarding or child protection are welcome but not essential; what matters most is sound, current knowledge of how safeguarding works in practice.

Essential

• A strong working knowledge of safeguarding legislation and statutory guidance, including the Children Act 1989/2004 and Working Together to Safeguard Children
• Experience of safeguarding governance, policy, or case oversight at a strategic level
• The confidence to challenge constructively, ask difficult questions, and hold others to account without undermining trust
• Sound, independent judgement, particularly when handling sensitive or complex information
• A collaborative approach — willing to work closely with our Designated Safeguarding Lead and CEO as a…