DCF Reporting Forms & Area Offices
Visit the website, Massachusetts Department of Children & Families Locations to find contact information for your local office and see…
Home / Safe Environments / Safe Environment Strategies: Visibility
Whether or not you can control the design of your space, physical safety depends on your ability to continuously account for all the children and youth in your care. From this perspective, visibility is key to protecting children and youth. Being seen is the greatest fear of those who would bully, assault, steal from, sexually abuse, or otherwise victimize children. Therefore, you should take actions within your means to design, build, or adapt your existing spaces to maximize visibility; to minimize or eliminate space where children and youth cannot be seen; and to establish policies and procedures for access to and use of the space (when both on- and off-site). Those policies should include:
*Find more information on staff-to-child ratios from the American Camp Association, and the Massachusetts Afterschool Research Study Report.
Overnight trips present different challenges related to visibility. If youth are staying in hotel/motel rooms, policies and procedures should:
Reporting
Visit the website, Massachusetts Department of Children & Families Locations to find contact information for your local office and see…
Code of Conduct
Once your Code of Conduct is in place, it’s important to implement it through training and by disseminating the information widely, in a variety…
Reporting
You can help protect the children you serve by maintaining an environment that prioritizes both preventing child abuse before it occurs and—since…
Monitoring Behavior
Protocols should be developed in order to inform staff and volunteers about supervision, communication, and reporting procedures at your…
Policies & Procedures
In order to create concrete and detailed Policies and Procedures at your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO), it is necessary to analyze what policies…
Policies & Procedures
Policies for youth-serving organizations in Massachusetts should clearly identify the duties and responsibilities of all staff, reflect both Federal…
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…
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…
Screening & Hiring
By checking a candidate’s references, you can obtain additional information about applicants and help verify their previous work and volunteer…
Screening & Hiring
Your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should create protocols for the application, interviewing, and screening process. Each step of the process…
Customized child sexual abuse prevention guidelines to meet the unique needs of any organization that serves children.
Learning Center Registration
Sign up for an account and start your learning experience.
Free Online Assessment
Let us help you find out where to start.