The Best Organizational Child Protection Policies

Child abuse prevention policies often vary from one organization to another based on your organization’s mission, values, demographics, location, and culture.

How do we best align child abuse policies with our values? You might think, “It’s easy! Let’s all get together for lunch and write a one pager about how we oppose child abuse.” But truly aligning your values takes more work. After all, every organization opposes child abuse. 

A crucial step in creating policies that align with your values  (this is best!) is to create an Independent Child Protection Board. They are responsible for setting the policies for the protection, recognition, and reporting of child abuse. This is an opportunity for your organization to do some serious soul searching and important decision making on how, within the organization’s mission, your team will implement a set of policies, procedures, and activities that will align with your organization’s values.

It’s easy to say, “We want all children safe and no children abused.” Of course, you and everyone in your organization not only thinks this but believes it. Putting those words into policies and action takes more effort.

In our experience, essentially “identical” organizations in the same state serving virtually identical populations of families and children still have different policies and activities in place to protect children and report abuse. And in each case, they are the best policies for the respective organizations. 

Would you like some guidance on aligning your values and forming an Independent Child Protection Board? Compass is here to assist you.