Child and Youth Protection

This is one of the most important issues that you should consider and address as a risk management practice. Since the participants of your girls’ program will include children and youth (generally those under the age of 18), you have a special responsibility to ensure that they are not harmed in any way. The following is a sample list of some of the important practices to adopt in addressing this issue.

 

1. Know Your Clients

Organizations offering services to children and youth must have more than a basic understanding of their target population. This understanding includes expected physical and mental development and the needs of children and youth of the targeted age range.

 

Failure to anticipate and act on needs that are common to the kinds of children and youth to whom you offer services could be considered negligent because the assumption could be made that service providers should be knowledgeable about these needs. You must also ensure that the activities in their programs are age appropriate and consider the physical and psychological development of their service recipients.

 

2. Select the Right Staff

Careful selection, adequate training, and sufficient supervision of staff (employees and volunteers) reduce the likelihood of abuse or neglect. While screening is an important and necessary risk management tool, no screening process will completely identify individuals who constitute dangers to vulnerable people. Other risk management strategies must be employed. The safety of your participants requires constant diligence by your organization's staff.

 

It is therefore recommended that you adopt a comprehensive screening process. The screening process, when used together with other risk management strategies will assist you to create safer environments in which to deliver your programs. A comprehensive screening process is based on four principles:

 

1. Legal compliance

2. Systematic application of procedures

3. Matching the level of screening with position-specific risk factors

4. Applying uniform selection criteria to all applicants for a specific position

 

Each step of the screening process should probe for abusive characteristics.

 

3. Screening Tools

Position descriptions

A written position description makes possible the development of selection criteria based upon the specific responsibilities of the position taking into account the potential risks that a position may have. For this reason, a position description should include all usual and occasional duties that the person placed in the position will be expected to perform.

 

Application forms

Application forms offer advantages over resume submissions, as they provide a uniform set of information to the reviewers upon which to base selection decisions. Applications should require signatures attesting to the truthfulness and completeness of the information provided by the applicant. Applicant signatures should also signify authorization for your organization to verify the information on the application from any source and to protect your organization and the individuals providing information from any liability.

 

Interviews

Face-to-face interviews are critical elements for both employee and volunteer screening. Interviewers should prepare a list of questions based upon the position. Interviews should provide ample opportunity for the applicant to ask questions about your organization and the responsibilities of the position. Applicants' questions may provide additional insight for the interviewers on the level of interest and amount of thoughtful consideration the applicant has given to submitting his or her application.

 

Reference checks

Checking references is an important tool for verifying past employment and volunteer service and for obtaining other information about the applicant relevant to the duties of the position. When checking references, questions should be asked that are open ended, allowing the reference to answer in his/her own words. When possible, it's best to check with people who have direct knowledge of the applicant, such as direct supervisors rather than HR personnel. Personal references may not be able to give insight on job performance, but may be able to shed light on personality traits and non-job related background, criminal history background, and such other attributes as ability to relate to children, if the position requires it.

 

Position of trust applicants and those who will work extensively with children should be subjected to further screening as warranted by the nature of their responsibilities. An enhanced screening process might consist of conducting a national criminal history records check, checking child abuse registries, or the use of credit reporting information.

 

4. Train for the Position and the Organization

Once staff members have been selected, your organization should ensure that they receive the necessary training to perform their duties and assist the organization to accomplish its mission. Part of this training should emphasize child safety, including child abuse prevention, as well as information about children's physical and emotional development, recognizing the signs of child abuse and neglect, and the reporting responsibilities of staff members. When new staff members learn how serious your organization is about protecting children and youth, they may be more motivated to implement the organization's policies and potential abusers may decide to look elsewhere for their victims.

 

5. Provide Proper Staff and Program Supervision

In addition to careful selection and effective training, your organization should provide sufficient staff supervision to spot problems before they reach crisis status.

 

6. Staff Supervision

Supervisory personnel should give feedback to the staff they supervise. Feedback should not be limited to performance problems. Recognition of positive achievements and complying with child and youth protection policies reinforces their importance with employees and volunteers. When supervisors detect that a policy is being broken they must confront the staff member and take remedial action in a timely manner. If the infraction is serious or part of a pattern of infractions, the supervisor should initiate termination proceedings according to the policies of the organization.

 

Staff supervisors also need to be alert to potential boundary violations by staff members, such as inappropriate physical contact, preferential treatment of some children, and one-to-one isolation of an adult with a child.

 

7. Program Supervision

One of the strongest child and youth protection measures is to require that a minimum of two adults be present during all activities and outings. More adults may be required depending on the nature of the activities and the numbers of children or youth participating in the activity. When private conversation is required, it should be visible to others but may be out of earshot.

 

Limiting one-on-one contact between adults and children helps to protect children from abuse and helps to protect adults from false allegations of abuse. Youth may benefit from participating in challenging activities for which they have been adequately trained and are properly equipped. However, if the youth participating in these activities are subjected to extreme pressure, ridicule, or other forms of psychological degradation, it is counter to the intent. The resulting destruction of self-confidence could constitute emotional abuse. Failure to recognize the inherent risks in these activities can lead to physical injuries, emotional trauma, and in extreme situations, even death.

 

1. Communicate with children, youth, and their families or caregivers

Guidelines for what is and is not a sanctioned activity should be clear. By sharing these guidelines with leaders, parents, and the young people participating in the program, the organization may prevent an abuser from acting. Helping young people recognize abusive behaviour and learning how they can help to protect themselves is a very important organizational responsibility.

 

2. Control the environments in which services are delivered

You have a responsibility to examine your programs and identify areas in which there may be increased opportunity for abuse to happen. For example, overnight trips may offer increased opportunities for abuse after the children have gone to bed. By recognizing this, your organization can issue policies that prohibit adults and children from sharing sleeping accommodations unless there are two adults present.

 

Community mentoring programs that stress developing relationships between an adult mentor and an individual mentee recognize the increased opportunity for abuse and therefore must increase the intensity of screening and case supervision. Mentoring programs can also limit meetings between mentors and mentees to public places where abuse is less likely to happen. It is the responsibility of your organization to understand the risks associated with your programs and devise strategies to manage those risks.

 

3. Take prompt action upon any allegation (or complaint) or suspicion of possible abuse

The protection of children and youth served by your program requires that any allegation (or complaint) or suspicion of abuse be immediately reported to the appropriate child protection agency. This is a mandatory statutory requirement and is subject to specific wording of the applicable legislation in your province or territory. It is therefore essential to know and carefully follow the statutory requirements for reporting sexual abuse in your province or territory.

It is also essential to check with application legislation in your province or territory to determine the age definition of when a child is subject to mandatory reporting requirements, as it can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

 

If the alleged or suspected abuse occurred within your organization, the suspected perpetrator should be suspended from any further association with your organization until the suspicions or allegations are investigated by local authorities. Only when investigations fully clear the alleged perpetrator should that person be allowed to return to his or her duties.

 

When a child discloses abuse, listen to the disclosure. Be supportive of the child and don't give any indication of disbelief. Express appreciation that the child trusted you enough to disclose the abuse, but don't promise to keep it secret. Explain that you have to report the allegations to the authorities and that they will want to talk with the child.

 

4. Develop a child/youth protection policy

A child/youth policy is an essential tool to minimize the risk of sexual and physical abuse of your program participants and it therefore must be prepared with the assistance of legal counsel. Your policy should define and address abuse, neglect and other issues concerning minors and should be communicated to your employees and volunteers in the form a written manual. This will ensure that your employees and volunteers are educated on how to recognize an abused or abusive person or environment and the precautions and procedures necessary to take to protect the child or youth.

 

As mentioned above, each Canadian province or territory has its own child protection legislation. Your policy must address the prescribed procedures and standards that apply in your jurisdiction and the duties and responsibilities that are placed on the general public to report instances or suspicions of child abuse.

 

The following is a general overview of what should be contained in a child protection policy. It is advised that you retain legal counsel to review your policy before adopting it:

 

Definition of terms

The policy must include a section that defines relevant terms. Terms such as “Child,” “Child in Need of Protection/Intervention,” “Neglect,” “Abuse,” and other relevant terms that appear in all provincial/territorial child protection legislation. In this regard, it is essential that a definition section be included in your policy to ensure that employees and volunteers have definite and accurate guidelines. These definitions and guidelines will help employees and volunteers to know when a person is in need of protection/intervention and it is their legal duty to report.

 

Reporting suspicions of child abuse

The policy must also spell out the steps that should be followed in reporting suspicions of child abuse. This should include mention of who has a duty to report when a child is in need of protection or intervention, to whom the report should be made, and how the report should be done. In general, all persons have a duty to report their suspicions directly to the child protection agency and/or the police; however, depending on the particular province or territory in question, the reporting procedures may vary.

 

Abuse Incident Reporting Forms

It is strongly recommended that abuse incident reporting forms be drafted in addition to the policy. Such forms should be made available to all employees and volunteers in order to assist them in documenting any child abuse complaints that they may receive.