Youth Organizations Editing and Proofreading Services

Youth organisations write two versions of everything, and usually only produce one. The safeguarding policy exists for inspectors, funders and insurers; the young people it protects have never seen it and could not use it if they had. Yet the policy only works if a fifteen-year-old knows what a leader may and may not do, recognises when a line has been crossed, and knows exactly who to tell and what will happen next. A policy nobody has explained to the people it protects is a document about protection rather than a mechanism for it.

We edit what youth clubs, uniformed organisations, youth charities and young people's services produce — safeguarding and child protection policies, young-person-facing versions of those policies, code of conduct for staff and volunteers, behaviour and participation agreements with young people, consent and permission forms for parents and carers, activity and trip information and risk documentation, recruitment and induction material for youth workers and volunteers, training material on boundaries and disclosure, youth voice and participation structures, session plans and programme material, funding applications and reports, complaints and concerns procedures, and communication and social media policy for contact with young people. Our editors produce the young person's version as a genuine version.

The young-person-facing safeguarding document is the one to get right, and it is not a simplified policy. It answers different questions: what adults here will never do, so that a young person has a standard to measure against rather than an instinct; what to do if something feels wrong, including that they do not have to be sure; exactly who to tell, by name, with more than one option because the obvious person may be the problem; what happens after they tell someone, honestly — including that the adult may have to pass it on and cannot promise to keep it secret, which is the sentence services most often omit and the one that most damages trust when it emerges later; and what happens if they tell and are not believed. We write these to be read by the age group that will read them, and we make sure they say what the adult version says rather than a reassuring subset of it. Organisations that have both documents, consistent with each other, are the ones where disclosures actually happen.

Everything you send is treated in strict confidence, including safeguarding records and material about identifiable young people. We are editors rather than safeguarding, legal or youth work professionals, and we offer no view on any policy's adequacy, any concern or any case. What we can do is make policies clear and produce the version the young people can actually use.