What is a Code of Conduct?
Your Code of Conduct is an essential tool to help you ensure the safety of the children and youth in your care, and prevent child sexual abuse.
Home / Policies & Procedures / Continuous Improvement of Your Policies and Procedures
Your Policies and Procedures must be continuously referred to throughout the year. At a minimum, an annual review of all policies and procedures should be conducted as well as a comprehensive assessment every three years. Ongoing consideration and revision guarantee that your policies are up to date with the broader circumstances in and outside of your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO).
Policies and Procedures remain effective when organizations:
Communicate your policies and protocols to all stakeholders, including parents. Policies and Procedures provide a means of expressing, in a public way, your organization’s ongoing pledge to keep kids safe from harm. All stakeholders, including parents and your community are made aware of the concrete steps your organization plans to take to protect children from harm.
Form community partnerships with local organizations to improve your child abuse prevention plans at your organization. Stakeholders include organizations providing similar services, child welfare agencies, and law enforcement. Any entity that works on behalf of the safety and security of children can be considered an important stakeholder with whom to collaborate on efforts.
Ensure staff and volunteers adhere to internal and external communication protocols when there is a suspected case of abuse. All staff and volunteers must be aware of their duties to report suspicions of abuse and neglect in a prompt manner. The names, contact information, and roles of staff who are designated to file reports are known to all.
Conduct an annual review and update of your policies, including Code of Conduct, Screening and Hiring, Reporting, Safe Environments, and Training. Continuous assessment of your current policies and procedures is necessary to remain effective. Leadership must coordinate these efforts and review the findings with all staff and volunteers.
Run a comprehensive assessment of your child abuse prevention plan every three years and include interviews with all stakeholders. In order to remain sustainable, your child abuse prevention plan must be continuously reviewed and revised. Ongoing communication with and feedback from stakeholders is crucial to keeping them engaged in your organization’s child safety plans and initiatives.
Your Policies and Procedures are the backbone of the initiatives to protect kids from sexual abuse. Your policies must be continuously referred and adhered to and reviewed to ensure they are up to date and effective at protecting kids.
Code of Conduct
Your Code of Conduct is an essential tool to help you ensure the safety of the children and youth in your care, and prevent child sexual abuse.
Reporting
With some exceptions, a single incident or observation of suspected abuse or neglect may not necessarily trigger the need for a call to the…
Reporting
All staff must be aware of the warning signs and symptoms of child abuse and neglect, know how to respond appropriately, and report suspected cases…
Training
A Model for Evaluation: Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Every training course needs a method of collecting feedback to ensure a course is…
Code of Conduct
For your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) to ensure the safety of the children it serves, there must be a set of principles to guide the environment…
Policies & Procedures
Your Policies and Procedures must be adhered to by all staff and volunteers to maintain safety standards at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO)….
Safe Environments
In the past, youth-serving organizations needed to worry about safety only within the physical environment—the building(s) where their services…
Reporting
The term Human Trafficking is used by Department of Children and Families (DCF) as an umbrella term used to include two specific allegations of…
Reporting
Who Are Mandated Reporters? Massachusetts law defines a number of professionals as mandated reporters (for the full list, see MGL Chapter 119,…
Sustainability
Long-term organizational change is a process of continuous review, evaluation, and communication. It includes regularly examining what is working…
Customized child sexual abuse prevention guidelines to meet the unique needs of any organization that serves children.
Safe Kids Thrive is managed by the Children's Trust of Massachusetts
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