Basic Requirements of Screening and Hiring
Your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should create protocols for the application, interviewing, and screening process. Each step of the process…
Home / Reporting / Building a Culture of Prevention
You can help protect the children you serve by maintaining an environment that prioritizes both preventing child abuse before it occurs and—since abuse can still happen despite comprehensive prevention efforts—ensuring its detection at the earliest possible time. It’s essential that you build and sustain a culture in which any member of your staff will come forward with their concerns as quickly as possible if child/youth maltreatment is suspected, observed, or disclosed to them. All staff and volunteers need to know what to do to ensure children’s safety and well-being, to communicate the situation promptly and effectively to the person(s) identified in your Code of Conduct, and, if necessary, to report the circumstances to the Department of Children and Families (DCF) or to the police.
Early reporting is critical, and is the key to preventing further harm. That’s why you need to ensure that all of your employees and volunteers understand the basic issues of child abuse and neglect, and know how to recognize its signs and symptoms. They should be familiar with Massachusetts law, policies, and reporting procedures, along with the responsibilities of mandated reporters—including how, when, and to whom to make a report. On Safe Kids Thrive, you’ll find this information along with suggestions about how you can address these requirements within your organization, how to react to a child who discloses abuse, and the different circumstances your staff and volunteers may encounter that require reporting—including situations where a child or youth is being harmed or abused by another child or youth with problematic sexual behaviors.
Screening & Hiring
Your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should create protocols for the application, interviewing, and screening process. Each step of the process…
Sustainability
Leadership at Youth-Serving Organizations (YSOs) should maintain regular communication on the culture of safety with staff, volunteers, parents, and…
Policies & Procedures
Your Policies and Procedures must be continuously referred to throughout the year. At a minimum, an annual review of all policies and procedures…
Reporting
Effective reporting structures rely on staff and volunteers’ recognition of signs and symptoms of abuse and neglect. The Youth-Serving…
Sustainability
Long-term organizational change is a process of continuous review, evaluation, and communication. It includes regularly examining what is working…
Screening & Hiring
Here are some best practices to consider when conducting your criminal background checks: Save time and resources by delaying criminal…
Monitoring Behavior
Monitoring Behavior is the responsibility of all staff to hold each other accountable for appropriate behaviors and to report inappropriate conduct…
Code of Conduct
Your Code of Ethics helps to guide the behavior and decision-making of your staff, volunteers, and participants by clarifying the standards and…
Training
Parents and other caregivers need to receive, at a minimum, the same level of prevention education as their child/youth. Parents can be strong…
Screening & Hiring
By checking a candidate’s references, you can obtain additional information about applicants and help verify their previous work and volunteer…
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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