How to Maintain Compliance for Child Safety Monitoring

An organization requires a system to maintain compliance for child safety monitoring that includes training in abuse prevention which is integrated with background checks, reporting and oversight.

Even if an organization has the best training program for for maintaining compliance, it can difficult to get full compliance from employees. A low compliance rate can put your organization at a serious risk for child abuse allegations and lawsuits. Instead, 

How do we effectively motivate our team and achieve full compliance for child safety monitoring? Simple. If they are employees, their employment can be dependent upon completing the training. That is a lot of influence. When an employee is sent home until they are compliant with their child protection safety training, you can be sure that the employee will take the training ASAP. 

We saw this scenario play out with one of our clients. Prior to partnering with Compass, this client gave employees a six month grace period to complete their child protection training requirement. A grace period is also a risk period where employees and volunteers interact with children without having any training.

Once the organization launched their training with Compass, they began to require completion of training PRIOR to the first day of employment. When this change was implemented, the organization also implemented a policy that employees would be sent home without pay until they achieved compliance. We immediately heard from one of their new employees that they had indeed enforced the policy. The employee was home doing his training and compliant before the afternoon was over.

Volunteers should also be required to complete all training and background check requirements PRIOR to their first volunteer activity.

Check out more compliance best practices here.