Safeguarding Policy.
Forge Safeguarding Policy
Last updated: August 2026
Policy owner: Victoria Longdon, Designated Safeguarding Lead, Forge Conducting
Review date: May 2027, or following any safeguarding incident
Forge Conducting is committed to providing a safe, respectful and supportive environment for everyone who takes part in or contributes to our programmes.
This policy explains how Forge identifies, prevents and responds to safeguarding concerns, taking account of the particular circumstances of being an international, digital-first organisation.
1. Introduction and Purpose
Forge Conducting is an online mentoring and training organisation for choir conductors, delivering a 30-week course through live video sessions, 1-to-1 mentoring, an online community, and a network of mentors and guest contributors based around the world.
We do not operate premises that participants visit, and we do not work directly with children as a course provider. This does not mean safeguarding is not our responsibility. Rather, our safeguarding risks arise through different channels: mentoring relationships, video calls, community spaces, financial disclosures made through our Bursary Fund, and the wellbeing of adults navigating a demanding professional development programme.
This policy sets out how Forge Conducting identifies, prevents and responds to safeguarding concerns given the realities of being a digital-first organisation, and how we make sure that anyone connected to Forge - whether a participant, mentor, guest or member of the public - has a clear and safe route to disclose a concern and receive appropriate support.
2. Scope
This policy applies to everyone who interacts with Forge Conducting in a professional capacity, including:
- Course participants ("conductors") on any Forge cohort
- Mentors, guest speakers and clinicians contributing to live sessions
- Forge staff, founders and freelance contractors
- Members of Forge community spaces, including cohort WhatsApp groups
- Bursary applicants and anyone corresponding with Forge about funding, fees or personal circumstances
It covers the safeguarding of children and young people in the limited circumstances where anyone under 18 comes into contact with Forge, as well as adults, including adults who may be vulnerable at a particular point because of their circumstances rather than a fixed characteristic.
Forge participants are overwhelmingly adult professionals and volunteers in choral leadership. This policy is therefore written primarily with that adult population in mind, while maintaining clear procedures for exceptional circumstances in which a younger person or vulnerable adult may need additional protection.
3. Our Context as an Online Organisation
Being online changes the nature of safeguarding risk rather than removing it.
Our safeguarding approach therefore focuses particularly on the platforms, relationships and processes through which people interact with Forge.
In particular:
- Mentoring is personal and often takes place 1-to-1 over video call, sometimes touching on participants' confidence, career setbacks or difficult experiences in their choirs and workplaces.
- Our mentors and guest faculty are based in many different countries, with different legal and cultural safeguarding norms and different levels of familiarity with UK safeguarding practice.
- Forge community and cohort groups create ongoing peer contact outside scheduled sessions, which is largely unsupervised in real time.
- The Forge Bursary Fund may require applicants to disclose sensitive financial and personal information.
- As an online organisation, we cannot observe body language, home environments or wider context in the same way that an in-person organisation might. We therefore rely more heavily on people telling us when something is wrong.
The guiding principle is that while Forge cannot protect people from everything that happens outside our platform, we can ensure that Forge itself is a safe, well-boundaried environment, and that anyone experiencing difficulty knows how to reach us and what will happen next.
4. Definitions
Safeguarding
Action taken to promote the welfare of children and adults and protect them from harm, abuse, neglect or exploitation.
Adult at risk
A person aged 18 or over who may, at a particular time, be unable to protect themselves from harm or exploitation - for example because of a mental health crisis, bereavement, isolation or a coercive relationship.
Disclosure
When someone tells a member of Forge, directly or indirectly, that they or someone else is at risk of, or experiencing, harm.
Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)
The named individual with overall responsibility for safeguarding at Forge, who receives and acts on concerns.
Power dynamic
An imbalance of influence or authority between two people - for example between mentor and mentee - which safeguarding practice must actively take into account even where both parties are adults.
5. Guiding Principles
5.1 Welfare comes first
Any conflict between safeguarding and other priorities - including reputation, course scheduling or funding - will be resolved in favour of the welfare of the person at risk.
5.2 Everyone's responsibility
Safeguarding is not delegated entirely to one person. Every mentor, staff member and contractor is expected to be aware of potential concerns and know how to report them.
5.3 Proportionate and person-led
Adults have the right to make their own decisions. We will seek consent before acting wherever possible, except where there is a risk to life, a risk to a child, or a legal duty to act.
5.4 Accessible by design
Because we cannot rely on face-to-face cues, our reporting routes are designed to be easy to find and use from any country or time zone.
5.5 No wrong door
However a concern reaches Forge - by email, community chat, mentor call, bursary form or another route - it will be taken seriously and directed to the appropriate person.
5.6 Confidentiality with limits
Information will be shared only with those who need to know, except where safety requires wider disclosure. Wherever possible, this will be explained to the person concerned.
6. Roles and Responsibilities
Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)
- Named point of contact for all safeguarding concerns
- Assesses concerns and decides upon and coordinates an appropriate response
- Maintains confidential safeguarding records
- Reviews this policy annually
Deputy Safeguarding Lead
- Covers the absence of the DSL
- Provides an independent point of contact for any concern involving the DSL directly
Founders / Directors
- Have overall accountability for safeguarding culture and resourcing
- Approve this policy and any response to a serious safeguarding incident
Mentors and Guest Contributors
- Follow the Forge Mentor Code of Conduct
- Pass any safeguarding concern to the DSL promptly
- Do not investigate concerns themselves or promise confidentiality
Community Moderators
- Monitor cohort and community spaces for conduct and welfare concerns
- Escalate concerns to the DSL rather than attempting to resolve safeguarding matters within the group
All Participants
- Treat one another with respect in accordance with the Forge Participant Code of Conduct
- Are encouraged, but not obliged, to raise concerns about themselves or others
7. Safeguarding Risks Specific to Online Delivery
Forge's safeguarding procedures reflect the particular risks that arise through online course delivery.
7.1 Live and 1-to-1 Sessions
1-to-1 mentoring creates a close professional relationship between mentor and mentee and requires appropriate boundaries.
To reduce risk:
- 1-to-1 sessions are logged within Forge's scheduling systems rather than being entirely private arrangements.
- Participants are told that they may raise a concern about their mentor and can request a different mentor if necessary.
- Sessions may be recorded with both parties' consent where appropriate.
- Mentors are provided with guidance covering professional boundaries, relationships and appropriate topics.
Group video sessions are accessed through Forge's course platform, with access restricted to enrolled participants and authorised guests.
A named Room Steward is present during group sessions and can respond to conduct, pastoral or safeguarding concerns where necessary.
7.2 Community and Peer Spaces
Forge cohort and community groups, including WhatsApp groups, create valuable opportunities for communication and peer support, but also create contact outside scheduled teaching.
Forge therefore:
- Includes a member of the Forge team in community groups where appropriate.
- Expects all participants to communicate respectfully and professionally.
- Escalates welfare or conduct concerns to the DSL rather than attempting to resolve safeguarding matters through the group itself.
- Encourages anyone who receives contact from someone connected with Forge that feels inappropriate or uncomfortable to report it.
7.3 Financial and Personal Disclosures
Bursary applications and conversations about fees or funding may involve sensitive personal or financial information.
Forge therefore:
- Restricts access to bursary applications and related information to those who need it.
- Stores sensitive information separately from general course records where appropriate.
- Treats any disclosure suggesting a risk to someone's welfare as a safeguarding concern regardless of the outcome of their funding application.
7.4 Recordings, Data and Digital Footprint
Course recordings, chat logs and community posts may contain personal information or sensitive disclosures.
Forge therefore:
- Applies appropriate retention periods to recordings and digital records.
- Stores recordings on access-controlled platforms.
- Limits access to those who require it for legitimate course purposes.
- Handles personal information in accordance with the Forge Privacy Policy, UK GDPR principles and applicable data protection law.
7.5 International Reach
Forge works with participants and mentors across many countries and time zones.
Safeguarding laws, emergency services and sources of support differ internationally. Where Forge cannot act directly, we will focus on helping the person concerned identify appropriate support in their own country.
Our support information includes international resources rather than relying solely on UK-based services.
7.6 Under-18s and Exceptional Contact with Young People
Participants under the age of 18 are not eligible to join the Forge programme.
However, Forge participants may themselves work with children and young people, and rehearsal footage submitted as part of the course may include choirs containing under-18s.
Conductors are therefore briefed to film themselves wherever possible, or to position cameras so that only the backs of singers' heads are visible.
Where faces other than the conductor are visible, the necessary permissions must have been obtained and any applicable safeguarding and data-protection requirements followed.
Rehearsal Review footage is checked in advance by the Room Steward to ensure it meets Forge's safeguarding requirements.
7.7 Wellbeing of Adult Participants
Conducting can be an emotionally exposing profession, and participants may be navigating burnout, confidence issues, workplace conflict or personal difficulties during their time with Forge.
Mentors are not counsellors.
They are briefed to listen, respond with empathy and refer concerns rather than attempting to provide counselling or investigate a situation themselves.
Forge provides appropriate routes through which participants can raise concerns or seek further support.
8. Codes of Conduct
8.1 Mentor and Guest Code of Conduct
Mentors and guest contributors are expected to:
- Maintain appropriate professional boundaries with participants.
- Keep 1-to-1 sessions professional in focus.
- If a conversation moves into personal crisis, listen supportively and refer rather than taking on a counselling role.
- Never ask a participant to keep a conversation secret from Forge.
- Disclose any existing relationship with a participant which could create a conflict or significant dual relationship.
- Report safeguarding concerns promptly and in good faith.
8.2 Participant Code of Conduct
Participants are expected to:
- Treat mentors, guests and fellow participants with respect in all Forge spaces.
- Refrain from harassment, discrimination or bullying.
- Respect appropriate professional and personal boundaries.
Participants are encouraged, but never obliged, to raise concerns about their own experience or something they have noticed. Nothing is "too small" to mention.
Serious breaches may result in removal from the course in accordance with the Forge Terms & Conditions and Code of Practice.
9. Confidential Ways to Raise a Concern
Because Forge has no physical reception desk or drop-in office, we provide different ways for people to raise concerns.
These include:
- An anonymous online form for anyone who does not wish to put their name to a concern, with the option to provide contact details if they would like a response.
- The ability to raise a concern with someone other than your mentor, so that a concern about a mentor never has to be reported through that same mentor.
- The opportunity to arrange a private conversation with the Designated Safeguarding Lead.
These routes are explained to participants at the beginning of each course and are available through Forge's safeguarding information.
10. Responding to a Disclosure or Concern
When a safeguarding concern is raised, Forge will follow the following process:
10.1 Listen and note
Whoever receives the concern should listen without judgement, avoid promising absolute confidentiality, and make a factual written record as soon as possible afterwards.
10.2 Pass it on promptly
Concerns should be passed to the DSL - or the Deputy Safeguarding Lead if the concern involves the DSL - within 24 hours, and sooner where there is any immediate risk.
10.3 Assess
The DSL will assess the level of risk and urgency and determine whether the situation involves a child, an adult at risk or a wider conduct matter.
10.4 Act
Depending on the circumstances, action might include a welfare check-in, signposting to external support, addressing conduct with a mentor or participant, removing someone from a Forge space, or referring a concern to statutory authorities or emergency services in the relevant country.
10.5 Follow up
Within the limits of confidentiality, the person who raised the concern will be told what will happen next and offered appropriate support.
10.6 Record and review
A confidential record will be kept securely and separately from general course files. Safeguarding cases will inform the ongoing review of Forge's safeguarding procedures.
Where there is risk to life or a child-protection concern, Forge will act immediately, including contacting appropriate local emergency services where necessary.
11. Support and Signposting
Forge is not a crisis or counselling service. Our role is to listen, take concerns seriously and help people find appropriate support quickly.
Because our community is international, we maintain both UK and international sources of support, including:
- UK: Samaritans - 116 123, free, 24 hours a day
- International: Befrienders Worldwide and international crisis-support directories
- Music profession: Help Musicians and Musicians' Union wellbeing support
- Immediate danger: contact the appropriate local emergency services
This information is reviewed and updated as services change.
12. Confidentiality and Information Sharing
Information shared as part of a safeguarding concern will be kept confidential and shared only with those who need to know in order to keep someone safe.
Wherever possible, we will discuss with the person concerned what we propose to do, explain why, and seek their consent.
There are circumstances in which Forge may need to act without consent, including where:
- There is a risk to life or of serious harm to the person or someone else.
- A child or young person is involved.
- Forge is under a legal obligation to share information.
Where this happens, we will still seek to be open with the person concerned about what has happened and why, unless doing so would itself increase the risk.
13. Record Keeping and Data Protection
Safeguarding records will be:
- Factual and dated.
- Stored separately from general administrative and course records.
- Accessible only to those who need access for safeguarding purposes.
- Retained in accordance with the Forge Privacy Policy, UK GDPR and applicable data-protection requirements, and for no longer than necessary.
Sensitive bursary and financial information is similarly subject to restricted access.
14. Training and Awareness
Forge takes reasonable steps to ensure that those involved in delivering its programmes understand their safeguarding responsibilities.
This includes:
- Providing mentors with safeguarding guidance before working with Forge and appropriate refresher information.
- Ensuring the DSL and Deputy Safeguarding Lead undertake appropriate external adult and child safeguarding training and refresh this in line with good practice.
- Sharing accessible safeguarding information with participants as part of their induction, rather than relying solely on publication of this policy.
15. Monitoring and Review
This policy is reviewed at least annually by the Designated Safeguarding Lead and Forge Directors.
It will also be reviewed following any safeguarding incident, near-miss, or significant change to the way Forge operates - for example, the introduction of a new community platform or expansion into a new area of delivery.
Feedback from participants and mentors is welcomed as part of this process.
16. Safeguarding Contacts
If you have a safeguarding concern, or are unsure whether something constitutes a safeguarding concern, please contact:
Designated Safeguarding Lead
Victoria Longdon
[email protected]
Deputy Safeguarding Lead
Greg Beardsell
[email protected]
If there is an immediate risk to life or safety, contact the appropriate emergency services in your country.
