Vision
To create a sustainable safe environment for children and the vulnerable.
mission
To collaborate with key stakeholders and our passionate members to together make safe an environment where any child or vulnerable person could be rest assured of maximum support from caregivers, educational and other services providers.
Core Values
Trust, Education, Ethics, Technology and Hope (TEETH)
PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBILITIES & OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the Academy include:
To be one of the world’s leading and most influential professional organisation that brings together people whose job roles involve safeguarding and child protection.
To develop curriculum in collaboration with other relevant international organisations to provide capacity building and certification.
To be at fore front of setting standards meant to creating a safe environment.
To deliver through cutting edge technologies, distinctive and excellent professional certification, accreditation, and continuous professional development (CPDs) vital for competence building on practitioners.
To support and assist members’ training and development needs throughout their entire career by keeping them updated on the current safeguarding innovations.
To continue to provide intellectual discourse as well as leadership on emerging trends in Child Protection and regulations in Africa and other developing economies.
To continually promote ethics and professionalism in safeguarding and supporting the government authorities in creating a safe country for every child and vulnerable adults, while placing special emphasis on internationally acceptable standards of best practices.
To focus on attaining sustainable learning and professional development through creative alliances and partners with regulators, operators and other relevant agencies and service providers for mutual benefits.
To make the Academy financially independent by ensuring that there is a balance in its funding sources.
To develop our staff to improve their people and other resources management skills.
Providing a competitive remuneration structure for our staff and reimbursement system to our volunteers.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SAFEGUARDING ACADEMY
With high cases of safeguarding and child protection lapses in the world over, it was so thoughtful of our Founder, Joseph Akpan, who has taught across all levels in the UK, with his close colleagues and friends from the health/care sector in the UK to set up the Academy as a non-profit organisation to address these teething issues.
In recent times, there have been series of cases of child abuse and sexual exploitation in Nigeria. Some of these cases as reported by both the local and international media happened in top private schools, faith-based schools, and places of worship. One would seriously wonder what the case in public schools and settings would be where the most vulnerable are cared for. This is reflected on the recent global report by the Out of the Shadows. From the report, it was evidenced that Nigeria was ranked 2nd to the bottom with a score of 28.4 for not having adequate protective legislation in place. Click here https://outoftheshadows.global/data/2022/protective%20legislation for more information.
One of the reasons the Academy of Safeguarding Professionals is set up is to liaise with other key stakeholders to set up a system and body of laws that would be able to prevent our children and vulnerable adults from being continuous victims of the very people and professionals who were meant to provide them care.
It is our strong belief that we can rewrite our story and redeem our global image, and above all set the standards for other countries. Of course, we can!
GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE
The Academy is governed by a Governing Council which is made up of the President/Chairman of Council, the Vice President, National Treasurer, 6 elected members to represent each geo-political zones in Nigeria and the Registrar/CEO as Council Secretary.
The Council is chaired by the President/Chairman of Council.
The Management is chaired by the Registrar/Chief Executive and serves as Secretary to the Council.
There are different categories of memberships:
Senior Fellows
Fellows
Honorary Fellows
Corporate Members
Associate Fellows
Student Members
The Council is assisted by the following standing committees in its effort to formulate policies.
Office of the Founder
Board of Past Presidents & Registrars/Chief Executives
Board of Fellows and Honorary Fellows
Disciplinary Committee (Investigation & Disciplinary)
Capacity Building and Certification Committee
Finance Committee
Audit Committee
Membership Services and Development Committee
Research, Strategy, and Advocacy Committee
Events Planning Committee (Annual Dinner, Awards & other Events),
COUNCIL MEMBERS
President:
Vice President:
Treasurer:
Representatives (4)
MANAGEMENT TEAM
Registrar/CEO
Capacity Building & Standards
Membership Services
Information and Communications Technology
Finance & Administration
NIGERIA REGIONAL CORDINATORS & CONTACTS
South-East
South-South
South-West
North-Central
North-East
North-West
These positions and the rest of African and developing countries are now advertised. See our website and media for details, please.