The Safeguarding Support Officer apprenticeship, in the order you will meet it. Who teaches you and what they add. How the programme is shaped around your own workplace. Then the whole taught curriculum, thirteen months and fifty-two weeks of it, week by week.
TLC delivers your apprenticeship. The NSPCC delivers specialist safeguarding teaching on top of it, and the two are planned together rather than bolted to each other. What follows is everything currently available to you through the partnership.
County lines, harmful sexual behaviour, intrafamilial abuse, neglect and online harm, taught in detail by people who work on these cases nationally.
Childline and Helpline insight sessions bring you what children and adults actually say when they contact the NSPCC. No textbook gives you that.
NSPCC certificates stay with you after your apprenticeship ends. They sit on your CV and they support your next safeguarding role.
How criminal exploitation works, what it looks like early, and how to respond.
Recognising, assessing and responding to sexual behaviour that causes concern.
Online risk, grooming, digital evidence and the practical steps that reduce harm.
How safe organisations recruit, and how poor practice quietly creates risk.
Indicators, disclosure, professional curiosity and the quality of your response.
Safeguarding in sporting and activity settings, including club and coaching contexts.
Licensing, chaperones and the specific risks of performance settings.
The duty, what triggers it, and what happens after a report is made.
The hardest category to evidence. Patterns, chronologies and thresholds.
Directly relevant to you, and to the young workers you may end up supporting.
Attitudes and culture, and how they shape what gets reported and what does not.
The annual refresh on statutory guidance, and what has changed.
In development with the NSPCC. Title and release date to be confirmed.
In development with the NSPCC. Title and release date to be confirmed.
In development with the NSPCC. Title and release date to be confirmed.
What children bring to Childline, in their own words, and what that means for your practice.
What adults report to the NSPCC Helpline, and how those conversations are handled.
Allegations against staff and volunteers: thresholds, the designated officer, and fair process.
For people new to the DSO role, or building a solid foundation in managing concerns.
For experienced DSOs deepening their skills in complex and high-risk situations.
The designated safeguarding lead role in an education setting.
The designated safeguarding lead role in early years provision.
The designated safeguarding lead role in sport and leisure settings.
The designated safeguarding person role in Welsh settings.
How you get on to it. You and your skills coach decide which of these fits your role, your sector and where you are in the programme. Agreed sessions go into your training plan so the time is protected and the hours can be counted. TLC arranges your place or your platform access and confirms the dates. What you learn then feeds your portfolio, your reviews and eventually your professional discussion.
Where responsibility sits. Your curriculum, training plan, reviews, assessment and final result are TLC's. The NSPCC provides specialist teaching and does not manage your programme, assess you, or hold responsibility for your safeguarding. If you have a concern about your own safety or wellbeing, it comes to TLC's designated safeguarding lead, not to a trainer on a course. Asking a question or raising a concern about any part of your programme will never count against you.
Six ways your programme is shaped around your own organisation rather than delivered to you off a shelf. The standard is identical for every apprentice in the country. Almost nothing else about how you meet it is.
Below is the whole taught curriculum, in the order you will live it. Every dot on the line is a week. Click any milestone to open it, and any KSB code to see what it asks of you.
Fifty-two weeks of connected learning arrive at one place: gateway, then end-point assessment. By then you have rehearsed both parts of it: more than once.
A structured conversation with an independent assessor, underpinned by your portfolio of at least ten anonymised pieces of evidence. Milestone 13 is itself a full rehearsal.
You present real anonymised safeguarding cases, covering your role, decisions and reasoning, then take questions. Built deliberately through months 7, 11 and 12.
Every part of this apprenticeship earns its place because it matters at work and it matters to where your career can go. Here is how the main areas of your learning connect to the job you do today and the roles you could grow into.