Screening Toolbox: Verify Professional Credentials, Disciplinary Records, & Driving History
For positions that specify an educational requirement, you should verify any credentials listed on the employment application by requesting and…
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Home / Reporting / Building a Culture of Prevention
You can help protect the children you serve by maintaining an environment that prioritizes both preventing child abuse before it occurs and—since abuse can still happen despite comprehensive prevention efforts—ensuring its detection at the earliest possible time. It’s essential that you build and sustain a culture in which any member of your staff will come forward with their concerns as quickly as possible if child/youth maltreatment is suspected, observed, or disclosed to them. All staff and volunteers need to know what to do to ensure children’s safety and well-being, to communicate the situation promptly and effectively to the person(s) identified in your Code of Conduct, and, if necessary, to report the circumstances to the Department of Children and Families (DCF) or to the police.
Early reporting is critical, and is the key to preventing further harm. That’s why you need to ensure that all of your employees and volunteers understand the basic issues of child abuse and neglect, and know how to recognize its signs and symptoms. They should be familiar with Massachusetts law, policies, and reporting procedures, along with the responsibilities of mandated reporters—including how, when, and to whom to make a report. On Safe Kids Thrive, you’ll find this information along with suggestions about how you can address these requirements within your organization, how to react to a child who discloses abuse, and the different circumstances your staff and volunteers may encounter that require reporting—including situations where a child or youth is being harmed or abused by another child or youth with problematic sexual behaviors.
Screening & Hiring
For positions that specify an educational requirement, you should verify any credentials listed on the employment application by requesting and…
Training
Parents and other caregivers need to receive, at a minimum, the same level of prevention education as their child/youth. Parents can be strong…
Safe Environments
Standards should be implemented to ensure safe physical spaces for children, such as clear sight–lines and visitor procedures. To ensure child…
Screening & Hiring
To strengthen your screening and hiring process, you can use the questions in Thinking About Risk to make decisions about what additional background…
Screening & Hiring
Your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should create protocols for the application, interviewing, and screening process. Each step of the process…
Training
Ideally, all children/youth should receive training and education on issues of personal safety and abuse prevention. Personal safety and child…
Monitoring Behavior
It’s essential for your organization to create a culture that supports speaking up if inappropriate, harmful, or reportable behaviors take…
Training
Effective abuse prevention training provides learners with new information, knowledge, and skills. Your leadership is critical to the ways in which…
Screening & Hiring
Here’s how you can develop a screening policy that fits your organization’s role, size, and resources: Know the screening rules and…
Screening & Hiring
Screening means thorough reference and background checks, including review of criminal and sexual offender records, for all employees, staff,…
Customized child sexual abuse prevention guidelines to meet the unique needs of any organization that serves children.
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