Child Protection

Keeping children safe in our organisations and churches.

It is important that the places we work and worship are safe for children. This means that we need to develop child protection policies and ensure that they are understood and followed by everyone. Child Protection is a term that covers writing and implementing a Child Protection Policy, drawing up policies for handling visitors and volunteers, and protecting the child from exploitation in the media.

Overview

World Vision’s Children at Risk (pdf) surveys different approaches to child protection issues in five Asian countries and identifies a range of practical programming and policy measures that address the issues of neglect and abuse of children.

World Vision International's The Key Principles of Child Protection (ppt) by Heather McLeod is a quick presentation that covers the main points needed for developing a child protection policy in international and local organisations. Protecting Our Future (pdf) by Joni Middleton goes into more details which is useful especially for organisations who work with children in residential care.

Protecting Children from the Protectors (pdf), a UNHCR/ SCF report describes how sexual abuse by aid workers in West African refugee camps caused child protection policies to be developed by many organisations worldwide and for international donors to require it.

Setting the Standards (pdf) guides International NGOs through a process of developing and implementing a child protection policy.

ECPAT Australia have produced a video pack ‘Choose with Care’ which includes excellent suggestions on recruitment in developing countries where police checks are not possible. It is available from ecpat@ecpat.org (email) or www.ecpat.org (web)

The independent Christian-based Churches' Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) www.ccpas.co.uk (web) has produced a wide variety of audio-visual resources for churches in the UK. However this is not available on this CD/ website because it needs to be updated regularly. However, it is available free of charge to organisations in developing countries on request hq@ccpas.co.uk (email).

Other suggestions for churches in the USA:

• Safe Place: Guidelines for Creating an Abuse free Environment’ Edited by Rev. Marv Parker. Christian Publications Inc, PA (includes a CD Rom of useful forms). http://www.christianpublications.com (web)
• “Reducing the Risk; Making Your Church Safe from Child Sexual Abuse”; by Church Law and Tax Report, P.O. 1098; Matthews, NC 28106, USA. Tel; 1(704) 841 -8066
• “How Safe Are Children at Your Church?” (from Children’s Ministry magazine, Nov/Dec 1999; PO Box .481, Loveland, CO 80539 - 00481O, USA
• “Better Safe than Sued” (a book of advice re. a church children’s/youth ministry); Group Publishing, Inc. 1515 Cascade Ave, Loveland, CO 80538-8681, USA Tel; 1(800) 447-1070; http://www.grouppublishing.com (web) 
• “Screening Children’s Workers: How to Protect Your Church Kids From Sexual Abuse”; article from Leadership magazine; Summer 2002; P.O. Box 37060, Boone, IA 50037-0060, USA

Toolkits

The Keeping Children Safe toolkit is produced by a coalition of international agencies such as Plan International, Save the Children, Oxfam, World Vision and Tearfund to help international agencies reach global standards in child protection. It is a complete pack for all agencies, big and small, who work nationally or internationally with children and includes:

• Tool 1 Keeping Children Safe: Standards for Child Protection (pdf), a book which explains what the basic standards should be for all organisations working in child protection across the world
• Tool 2 Keeping Children Safe: How to Implement Standards (pdf), a resource pack that provides guidance and activities to help you and your organisation meet those standards
• Tool 3 Keeping Children Safe: Training for Child Protection (pdf), a pack of flexible training exercises and materials to help you and your organisation train staff to meet the standards
• Tool 4 A DVD – to support and help with training
• Tool 5 A CD Rom – to support and help with training and implementation of standards. The CD Rom contains all the training materials, trainer notes, exercises, activities, sample forms and templates

For individual and printer-friendly exercises and materials, see Tool 2 folder and Tool 3 folder.

To order a hard copy of the Keeping Children Safe toolkit, including the CD and DVD, please write to publications@keepingchildrensafe.org.uk (email). For more information, see http://www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk (web).

Keeping the Children Safe in Child Sponsorship is a toolkit for protecting the child in sponsorship programs. It can be adapted for Visitor Policy. The components are:

• Intro: Keeping children safe in child sponsorship (pdf)
• Session 1: Advantages and disadvantages of child sponsorship (pdf) 
• Session 2: Sponsored and non-sponsored children (pdf) 
• Session 3: Advertising child sponsorship (pdf) 
• Session 4: Guidelines on gifts and correspondence (pdf)
• Session 5: Managing relationships with sponsors (pdf)
• Session 5a: Managing sponsors’ expectations (pdf)
• Session 5b: Sponsor Visits (pdf)
• Session 5c: Preparing for a sponsor’s visit (pdf)
• Handout: Sponsor’s case study (pdf)
• Handout: Fictional sponsorship adverts (pdf)
• Trainer’s Notes: Child Sponsorship (pdf)
• Example of agency explanation about child protection to sponsor at beginning of sponsorship (taken from Plan International) (pdf)  
• Example of an organisation’s policy on use of visual images (pdf)
• Example of Child Protection Interview Questions for Sponsors (pdf)

Viva Network’s Guide to writing Child Protection Policy (pdf) gives an outline of the key sections which should be included.

Tearfund has drafted a Rapid Child Protection Assessment Form (pdf) for relief response which helps to identify the gaps, if any, child protection measures in a crisis context.

UNICEF has developed these Ethical Principles and Guidelines (pdf) to assist journalists as they report on issues affecting children.

Hope Worldwide Philippines has a guide for a Child Protection Policy (pdf) and an operational manual for Volunteer Management (pdf).

Action International's Child Protection Policy Handbook (pdf) is an example of an International NGO's policy. The Child Protection Policy (pdf) of World Vision is also available.

A flowchart (pdf) to help you understand why your organisation should have a Child Protection Policy in place.

Websites

http://www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk (web) is an excellent website for interactive participation of children in "at risk" issues. It has downloadable material for child-to-child awareness activities.

http://www.make-it-safe.net/eng/more_info.asp (web) has resources on child commercial sexual exploitation and the Internet, including factsheets for the child participant as well as links to information for those working on this aspect. This factsheet (pdf), taken from this site, will give an overview of the growing problem.