Safeguarding Monitor is a software-as-a-service company driven by the belief that great systems can change child welfare. We create products in conjunction with our community of schools and professionals.
We’re working on solutions that help in three ways: they reduce the workload of school teams; they provide good, court-safe evidence on child protection issues; they build useful data and make it available to decision makers.
All our products are informed by legislation and statutory guidance. They’re also built to support the real safeguarding environment - they’re cloud-hosted, remotely accessible, and protected by bank-level security.
In an era of renewed awareness of data management standards, our products are designed to protect records for the future. From unlimited file storage for schools, to industry-leading portability and pupil transfer mechanisms, each system helps record and preserve sensitive information.
As our product portfolio expands, Safeguarding Monitor is dedicated to maintaining relationships with schools. We actively seek feedback, and we welcome feature requests. We believe that schools are at the front line of child welfare, and they need the best resources available. We bridge the gap.
James, Adrian and Fiona have been working on safeguarding software together since 2008. Informed by our experiences with safeguarding in education, we set out to build a solution to the workload, compliance challenges and the need to manage complex cases in schools.
Safeguarding Monitor was founded in 2017. Our core product was designed to tackle the extensive and complex requirements of safeguarding in education. It supports the day-to-day functioning of the school, as well as evidencing good practice for inspection. Each module of the system is live-tested in schools, and updated with changes to legislation and practice.
In June we won the tender for Ark Schools, supplying our safeguarding system to their 38 academies in some of the most deprived areas of the UK. We’re proud to support a Multi-Academy Trust with high expectations, overseas partnerships and a charitable aim: access to a great education and real choices in life.
As a team we work remotely, with staff in the UK, Spain and the US. With connections in all stages and provisions of education, we live-test each module in schools. The system is designed to grow with the needs of each of our settings, so we welcome feature requests, system reviews and feedback. That means every function is shaped by schools.
We know that the most vulnerable children need someone to listen. Safeguarding Monitor allows every staff member to document and share their concerns. It provides schools with a whole-family picture, and helps them reach out for help.
James Managing Director
James is a dyspraxic whizzkid. His school years were marred by bullying and harassment, and he has always believed that life should be easier for the next generation
Armed with a law degree, experience representing parents in SEND tribunals for charity IPSEA and a real passion for software creation, James has built a system schools love.
James oversees company direction, new product portfolio and the development roadmap, whilst the engineering team orchestrate a coup d’état to make him spend less time coding and more time coming up with ideas.
Fiona Operations Director
Drafted in to cover a school office during the swine flu epidemic, Fiona’s biggest challenge was learning exactly how to kick the register reader to make it work.
After that challenge, she was all set to raise with James the issue of safeguarding in schools. Paper-based systems are slow to use, easily missed and don’t share data (they also rely on Fiona’s nemesis: the photocopier). Fiona makes sure everything happens when it should, and oversees the customer service, research and policy teams.
The company does not own a photocopier.
Adrian Schools' Liaison
A former primary headteacher, cluster leader, senior ICT adviser for EducationLeeds and SEMH support, Adrian has all the skills schools need in one slightly scary-lovely human.
Alongside that, Adrian has a genuine passion for improving the lives of vulnerable children, families and communities. He spent his career taking over struggling schools in areas where children desperately needed the compassion, understanding, skills and shared ambition that a great school can bring.
Adrian works with our schools to ensure the system keeps meeting their needs, as well as acting as Data Protection Officer for our GDPR customers. Sometimes you need someone a bit scary, after all.
Caius Head of Engineering
Caius is our Head of Engineering, which is to say that we gave him a fancy job title to convince him to join us.
With experience in startups, fintech (or, for people who like real words, finance technology) and hosting companies, he’s particularly good at keeping our servers stable and running nicely, and raising his eyebrows at whatever crazy idea we’ve decided to build next.
Working with both Development and Operations, Caius ensures the system works, explains this wizardry to non-technical staff, and helps keep James sane. In return, we pay him some money which he uses to fund his real ale habit. Here’s to Caius.
Natalie Operations Executive
If you meet us at a show, exhibition or conference, your first encounter with the company may well be Nat. She’s our very own events-wrangling jack-of-all-trades Mary Poppins. Nat has been poached by Fiona repeatedly since they worked together at Lush, but we tend not to let them in the same room too often or no-one gets a word in edgeways.
Nat comes to us from a customer service and events background, so she’s great at working out how to make sure every new customer understands what’s going on. You’ll hear her voicing our training videos, with a tone so calm it makes everything alright. She’s also our token ginger.
Caitlin US Operations Lead
It turns out that teachers don’t stop working at 5pm. We knew this, because of Adrian, so we’re well prepared. Caitlin is based in Los Angeles, so she’s running eight hours behind (she’s also often light years ahead. Magic). That means she’s around to answer queries overnight.
Volunteering in autism, social health and domestic violence charities means Caitlin knows the world of safeguarding. She also helps us gain a wider perspective, sharing child welfare best practice from around the world. Caitlin undertook both her degrees in England, and misses jumpers, tea, and rain. Weird.
George Head of Research & Development
George joined us as a junior software developer, but turned out to be annoyingly good at everything. We promoted him to Head of Research & Development so we can make him do interesting things for us.
George has a wide variety of previous jobs; we rescued him from a terminally boring office role. We like to think that we’re his forever home, providing all the love and care he needs. Sadly, we also make him develop exciting new products for us, and fix James’ mistakes. RSPCA we ain’t.
Katherine Head of Customer Service
Our newest addition to the team is a full time Customer Service Manager. Katherine comes to us from a globally-renowned fashion brand so she’s still excited about having customers who aren’t awful.
Katherine runs all our frontline customer service, invoicing and contracts. Luckily she’s made a great impression on the developers; she’s also the person who sends tech support requests their way. Special mention has to be made for Katherine’s cats Benny and Waffles, who like to photobomb every conference call.