'Keeping children safe': an NGO child protection toolkit

Humanitarian agencies like Plan need to ensure they are doing all they can to protect children.

This is why Plan has collaborated in the development of a toolkit which offers practical resources covering the following topics:

• 'what is abuse?': overcoming common cultural and political misconceptions about abuse
• policies and procedures: developing written policies and procedures relevant to the organisation
• training: targetted workshop materials for typical roles, e.g. management, emergency relief, child sponsorship and programme staff

We have a responsibility to ensure every child's safety

Keeping Children Safe - a toolkit for child protection has been developed in collaboration with the NSPCC and a coalition of international agencies including Plan, Save the Children, Oxfam, World Vision, Tearfund, Everychild, Terre des Hommes and People in Aid.

It helps international agencies reach global standards in child protection, using the NSPCC’s child protection training knowledge.

The aim is to help staff recognise and respond appropriately to signs of child abuse.

Jasmine Whitbread, Chief Executive of Save the Children said; “It’s vital that we increase child protection awareness among relief and development workers. It’s an unpalatable fact that that some people are willing to prey on children already vulnerable from natural disasters or extreme poverty.

“Keeping Children Safe will enable organisations, wherever they are in the world, to develop practical child protection procedures and give staff vital training and support.”

In particular Keeping Children Safe will help agencies:

• recruit staff safely
• help agencies deter, detect and respond to abuse
• increase staff confidence to deal with child abuse concerns as they arise
• keep children safe beyond agency boundaries
• integrate child protection into all areas of the operation

The first rule for any international agency working with children is to do no harm. For the past six years Plan has worked with the NSPCC to provide child protection training for its staff.

Children are at the heart of Plan’s development work with poor communities, and child protection training is vital part of those activities. It helps our staff to detect patterns of behaviour that could be harmful to the children we work with.

More: www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk