I, like many others, am sickened by the news today of a nursery worker who was convicted of enabling the assault of children in her care, as well as abusing them herself.

This is a case that came to light by coincidence and not because any of the children concerned made any complaints or comments that aroused suspicion. The nursery worker had been subject to CRB checking, and was clear.

It once again highlights the need for safe recruitment processes for anyone who will be engaged with children and or vulnerable adults, and to follow these up with regular and robust supervision.

CRB checks or indeed the vetting and barring scheme is no replacement for these.

I believe that in order to avoid a similarly explosive incident involving volunteers we MUST call on our employing organisations to properly invest in the management of volunteers. Please get in touch with AVM if you need us to support your call for help within your agency, and to share with us what has been happening in your organisation to help to develop and maintain safe recruitment and ongoing support of volunteers.

You can do this anonymously if you prefer by creating a new ID name.