Further Considerations for Safe Environments
Safe Environments should be created by having clear sight lines, proper staff-to-child ratios, and safety standards for all personnel and…
Home / Safe Environments / Safe Environment Strategies: Transportation
Your youth-serving organization may provide transportation to children and youth—either on a regular or occasional basis. If you’re a larger organization, you may employ professional transportation companies to transport your students or clients on a daily basis. Or you may purchase your own vehicle(s) and hire one or more drivers. Alternatively, depending on your size or the nature of your services, you may rely on supervisors, employees, volunteers, or parents to transport children and youth in their personal vehicles. Each of these situations carries the potential for inappropriate contact with the children/youth being transported. Although larger organizations such as public schools are subject to regulatory requirements for the screening and hiring of drivers, many others are not.
Children and youth are and have been vulnerable to sexual maltreatment while being transported as part of an organization’s program. Drivers are also susceptible to false allegations when alone with a child being transported. For these reasons, you’ll need to consider your transportation policies. If your organization provides transportation under any circumstances, you should define in your policies who is responsible for transporting youth to and from regular activities and special events. The opportunities for drivers to be alone in a vehicle with a child/youth who is not their own should be minimized.
Some questions to consider as you define your transportation policies:
Safe Kids Thrive recommends the following best practices when it comes to transporting children/youth:
Safe Environments
Safe Environments should be created by having clear sight lines, proper staff-to-child ratios, and safety standards for all personnel and…
Monitoring Behavior
Develop a culture of child safety at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) using your Monitoring Behavior protocol that includes leadership-driven…
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.
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
Finding and retaining a qualified and diverse workforce is one of the greatest challenges for youth-serving organizations like yours. Given the…
Reporting
Mandated reporters are required to immediately report suspicions of child abuse and neglect to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families…
Code of Conduct
Leadership at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should implement the Code of Conduct by including it in many aspects of the organization. The…
Safe Environments
Standards should be implemented to ensure safe physical spaces for children, such as clear sight–lines and visitor procedures. To ensure child…
Screening & Hiring
Because the internet and social media are a rich source of information about prospective candidates, and social media is perceived as a forum in…
Training
The approaches in the chart below can provide frameworks that make your organization most effective when training adults and/or children/youth….
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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