Assessing your Current Policies and Procedures
In order to create concrete and detailed Policies and Procedures at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO), it is necessary to analyze what policies…
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Home / Policies & Procedures / No One-Size-Fits-All for Child Protection Policies
No matter how large or small a youth-serving organization is, or what services it provides, every organization shares the desire to keep children/youth safe from harm. Your policies and procedures for child safety and abuse prevention should serve as the backbone of your efforts to protect children/youth, and provide an overarching framework that represents your commitment to the safety and well-being of the children/youth entrusted to your care. They should provide a foundation to support all other elements, and lend meaning and credibility to the other safety components and strategies described by Safe Kids Thrive.
Your child protection policies must be developed with your organization’s mission and circumstances in mind. For example, an organization that provides youth mentoring may need to adopt prevention strategies for one-on-one activities between children/youth and staff/volunteers that are different from those adopted for group sports activities. Similarly, prevention strategies for a studio with a single, storefront location will likely differ from those of a statewide agency with multiple dedicated sites and scores of programs.
Either way, well-written policies, procedures, and guidelines provide the means for you to clearly express, in a public way, a commitment to your parents, community, and the children/youth you serve by outlining the steps you take to protect children and youth from sexual and other forms of abuse. They make clear the type of environment you strive to build and maintain, and the safeguards you employ to ensure that all staff, employees, and volunteers are properly vetted and trained to recognize and respond to inappropriate and/or harmful behaviors. Effective policies focus both on the creation and maintenance of safe, preventive environments for children/youth, and on the responsible management of incidents or alleged incidents of abuse.
Policies & Procedures
In order to create concrete and detailed Policies and Procedures at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO), it is necessary to analyze what policies…
Safe Environments
In the past, youth-serving organizations needed to worry about safety only within the physical environment—the building(s) where their services…
Monitoring Behavior
It’s essential for your organization to create a culture that supports speaking up if inappropriate, harmful, or reportable behaviors take…
Code of Conduct
Leadership at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should implement the Code of Conduct by including it in many aspects of the organization. The…
Training
Effective abuse prevention training provides learners with new information, knowledge, and skills. Your leadership is critical to the ways in which…
Training
Training programs are offered to staff at least annually to heighten awareness of your commitment to safety and help create a culture of…
Screening & Hiring
Because the internet and social media are a rich source of information about prospective candidates, and social media is perceived as a forum in…
Training
Training Best Practices To protect the children/youth you serve, your organization needs a comprehensive framework: a set of abuse prevention…
Training
Training should be used to increase knowledge and awareness of child abuse prevention, to teach staff about responding to children who disclose…
Reporting
In addition to the institutions mentioned specifically in the 51A law, any youth-serving organization can identify a “designated agent”—an…
Customized child sexual abuse prevention guidelines to meet the unique needs of any organization that serves children.
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