Safeguarding adults – working in social care: e-learning course

Safeguarding adults is everybody’s business. All staff have a responsibility to help prevent abuse and to act quickly.

This CPD-accredited course includes dramatised video scenarios which show how safeguarding issues can develop, and suggests ways of dealing with them that protect people at the same time as preserving their right to make choices about their lives

Course content

  • What is safeguarding adults and how does it affect each and every one of us?
  • How do I recognise the types and indicators of abuse?
  • What can I do if I suspect that someone is being harmed?
  • What can I do to make it much less likely that a person might be harmed?
  • How do I ensure that safeguarding adults is managed correctly in the context of the Mental Capacity Act 2005?

Learning outcomes

  • Understand your professional responsibilities for safeguarding, and how to respond to safeguarding concerns
  • Know the steps for responding to disclosure
  • Be aware of current best practice and guidance
  • Understand the safeguarding duties and responsibilities in the Care Act
  • Be able to describe the challenges of balancing safety and choice and control

Course features

  • Saved learning progress
  • Learning notes
  • Online assessment
  • CPD certificate
  • Email support
  • Works on desktop, tablet and mobile

CPD accreditation

By studying the course, and passing the assessment, you will be issued with a certificate showing 2.0 CPD points.

CPD Standards Office accredited course ref no 60036/36.

CPD Standards Office Accredited Course

Purchase for you and your colleagues

Standard price per learner: £55.00 + VAT

Discounts applied for orders of multiple licences.

Buy and study now Enquire about hosting on your LMS

Frequently asked questions

Frontline staff, team leaders and managers working for care and support providers. Also personal assistants, volunteers, advocates, helpline staff, GPs, health visitors, nurses, pharmacists and housing officers.

It is not designed for experienced safeguarding leads or local authority staff with additional safeguarding responsibilities.

  • Section 1 – Introduction to the course
  • Section 2 – What is safeguarding?
  • Section 3 – Who is an adult with care and support needs?
  • Section 4 – What is abuse?
  • Section 5 – What are my responsibilities with regard to safeguarding?
  • Section 6 – What can we do to prevent abuse of adults with care and support needs?

This is always a difficult question to answer as no two people are the same. There are a number of factors to consider such as level of knowledge, reading speed and in which order the course is completed.

For that reason, our estimates are really quite broad. Analytics shows that learners take an average of two hours to study the course and pass the assessment.

If you are interested in hosting this e-learning course and/or the assessment, on your Learning Management System (LMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) we are able to help. We can provide:
  • Course content: A SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compliant version of the course.
  • Assessment / certification: The assessment, questions and answers, in MS Word format, which you can build on to your platform.
  • Course updates: We will supply you with course updates for an agreed period of time.
  • Custom changes: We can help by making custom changes to the course to meet your specific learning and development needs.
Contact us to find out more about bringing our course to your learners on your platform.

v5 (February 2018) Includes the following changes:
  • Minor course content revision to improve clarity.
  • Revised exam to complement revised course content.
v4 (November 2017) Includes the following changes:
  • CPD certificate back page added as a download to the end of the course.
v3 (October 2017) Includes the following changes:
  • Separation of course content and assessment/certification process to improve the experience for learners.
  • New: Progress tracking bar added to record progress through the study area
v2 (December 2016) Includes the following improvements:
  • Updated references in the course.
  • Improved the video playback, by returning to the start of the video when the video has finished playing
v1 (July 2016) Changes include minor fixes to the course in terms of bugs, and the following improvements:
  • Assessment module, now allows the user the ability to go back to a previous question and change their answer.
  • Smaller file size of the SCORM package. Introduced for LMS users with reduced disk space quotas. Achieved by using hosted videos on YouTube.
v0.2 (May 2016) Original release of the 2016 version of the course. v0.1 Flash-based version of the course

  • The price stated is exclusive of VAT. Customers will be charged VAT at the UK’s standard rate in addition to the price stated.
  • On receipt of payment, we’ll issue you, the customer, with course invite(s).
  • You, the customer, will be able to issue course invites to your learners. Each learner must have a unquie and working email address, and must sign-up (or log into their existing) MySCIE account to accept the invite. MySCIE accounts are free.
  • Course invites must be issued to, and accepted by, learners, within 90 days of purchase, otherwise the invite will expire.
  • Learners are required to agree that their course progress is shared with you, the customer, before they can access the course.
  • From accepting the invite, the learner will have 90 days access to the course and its assessment / certification.
  • You can study the learning material (content) in any order, but you must view all the learning material before you can proceed to the assessment.
  • During your enrolment period you will have three attempts to pass the assessment. Only if you pass the assessment will a certificate be available for download. The assessment pass mark is 80 per cent.
  • Please check the recommended devices / web browsers for this course, before purchase.
  • Please check who this course is for, before purchase.
  • An internet connection is required, with the ability to stream video content from YouTube.
  • All material in these resources, including text, graphics, photographs, video and audio is copyright of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), unless otherwise stated.
  • Although SCIE’s courses have been used over many years with almost no reported problems, SCIE cannot provide technical support for their implementation or to investigate or fix any reported technical problems, nor does it warrant that they are fully compliant with all or any technical platform. Please review the recommended devices / web browsers advice.
  • Video scenarios have been produced using actors. This approach has been adopted to protect the identities of individuals whose accounts have been drawn upon to create the scenarios. The professional reflections are provided by experts (i.e. real people) whose professional responsibilities involve ensuring the safeguarding of adults at risk.

SCIE recommends using the latest versions of device operating software and browsers to access our e-learning courses. The minimum technical requirements are (depending on your setup):
  • Chrome: Latest version
  • Firefox: Latest version
  • Microsoft Edge: Latest version
  • Safari: Latest version
  • iOS: 10
  • Android: Marshmallow (6.0)
This course has been tested on a selection of Apple and Android mobile and tablet devices, running the latest web browsers. SCIE cannot take responsibility if the course, assessment or certificate does not work on your particular device or software. Please note: Usage of Microsoft Internet Explorer, including IE 11, is not recommended.

SCIE used to provide free access to the content of this course. The course has been relaunched with an improved assessment and now provides a CPD-accredited certificate. This course is no longer available for free.