1. Definition
Stakeholder Consultations are structured, ongoing processes by which an organization engages with its most important stakeholders — including both those directly involved in or affected by safeguarding and those with less direct connection but whose trust or support matters — to solicit feedback, insight, concerns, and values to shape, test, monitor, and refine its sexual abuse risk management.
Stakeholders may include staff, volunteers, children/vulnerable adults served, families/caregivers, partner agencies, regulators, community leaders, donors, board members, and the broader public or community.
Consultation refers to active engagement and collection of input; being “informed” refers to keeping stakeholders updated / aware without requiring their active feedback.
2. Purpose of Sexual Abuse (SAM) Risk Management Stakeholder Consultation
Consultation and stakeholder-information work together to:
- Ensure SAM risk management is relevant, credible, and culturally/contextually appropriate (consulted).
- Build legitimacy and trust across the organization’s full stakeholder base (not only those directly impacted).
- Identify hidden risks, blind spots, and evolving concerns that internal actors might miss.
- Establish defensibility: evidence that the organization did not act in isolation but sought input and transparency.
- Maintain transparency with “informed” stakeholders, keeping communication open even if their involvement is less direct.
- Support continuous improvement: feedback drives adaptation of controls, practices, or policies over time.
3. What Makes Consultations / Information Flow Fit-for-Purpose
Strategic Fit
- Consultation is integral to the SAM risk management strategy: stakeholder voices influence priorities.
- Stakeholder mapping includes those with high trust/power, even if not directly involved in safeguarding.
- Mission & values include empowering or including stakeholder input as a safeguarding priority.
Operational Fit
- Clear stakeholder mapping: identify who must be consulted vs who should be informed.
- Well-defined schedule: when and how often each group is consulted or informed.
- Accessible method: formats and channels appropriate to stakeholders’ capacities, culture, and language.
- Adequate resources: time, budget, and communications skills and resources for consultations.
Lived Experience Fit
- Consulted stakeholders feel their feedback is heard, valued, and used.
- Informed stakeholders feel included and kept up to date.
- Feedback loops: consulted groups see how their input shaped decisions; informed groups see results.
- Consistency: both consultation and informed activities are predictable and reliable.
- Adaptiveness: methods evolve as stakeholder needs, legal norms, or risk context change.
4. Prioritization: Who to Consult vs Who to Inform
To decide:
- Use a prioritization framework based on Interest and Influence (or on whether trust/reputation depends on them, even if they are not operationally involved).
- High Influence + High Interest → Consult actively (e.g., core staff, participants/families, partner agencies)
- High Influence / Lower Interest or High Interest / Lower Influence → Consult for strategic or occasional topics; Inform regularly
- Lower Influence + Lower Interest → Inform as part of transparency requirements
Examples:
| Stakeholder Type | Likely Role |
|---|---|
| Staff / Volunteers / Supervisors | Consult on behavior expectations, training, incident response, risk areas. |
| Children / Participants & Families | Consult especially about safety perceptions, reporting comfort, communication. |
| Board / Donors / Funders | Inform regularly; consult for strategy and major policy changes. |
| Regulators / External Partners | Consult where alignment or coordination essential; otherwise inform about compliance. |
| General Public / Community (if relevant) | Inform on transparency, visibility, trust-building; occasional consult via surveys or external forums. |
5. Examples of Activities
Consultation
- Workshops, focus groups, or forums with staff, participants, and families for policy or training design
- Surveys (anonymous if needed) to solicit feedback on behavior expectations or incident experiences
- Stakeholder advisory panels for strategic reviews of the SAM system or incident response
Information / Being Informed
- Regular newsletters, annual reports, website updates about SAM system performance, learnings, incidents (appropriately anonymised)
- Public statements or updates when a major policy change or incident occurs
- Providing accessible summaries to stakeholders who are informed, including “what was decided and why”
6. Common Strengths & Gaps
Strengths:
- When consulted groups feel “heard” and see visible changes.
- Broader stakeholder trust improves when information is transparent.
Gaps:
- Stakeholder consultations often focus only on those directly involved; public/community stakeholders are ignored.
- Consultations are done once and then forgotten; updates are often not communicated.
- Stakeholder fatigue if asked often without clear evidence of change.
- Lack of clarity about which stakeholders are consulted vs merely informed
- Feedback collected but not visibly acted upon or communicated back
- Resources for meaningful consultation (time, people, money) are often under-allocated
7. Signals of Strong Stakeholder Consultations
- A stakeholder map is in place, revisited periodically, to show consulted vs informed stakeholders.
- Consultation schedule with accountable owners.
- Diversity of voices in consultations.
- Clear documented examples of feedback leading to change.
- Informed stakeholders receive updates even when not consulted.
8. Opportunities for Improvement
- Develop a stakeholder mapping tool using record mapping and control mapping techniques.
- Allocate budget/time specifically for both consultation and informing.
- Use varied channels and safe/anonymous feedback where needed.
- Include “informed stakeholder” communication plans linked to major policy/incident response.
- Monitor stakeholder satisfaction/sense of trust in safeguarding.
9. Tracking in Jigsaw
- Consultation plan (stakeholders, mode, frequency) + inform plan.
- Records of consultation input + actions taken.
- Reports for informed groups.
- Metrics: number of consultations held, stakeholder satisfaction, % of feedback acted on, number of stakeholders informed.
Bottom Line
Stakeholder consultation isn’t only for those directly involved in safeguarding. For mission success, reputation, trust, and defensibility, all important stakeholders must be part of the loop — some through consultation, others through being well-informed. Prioritizing stakeholder engagement (consult vs inform) ensures resources are used where they matter and trust is broadly built.