At the request of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Military Family Readiness Policy’s Children, Youth, and Families (OMFRP’s) CYP Division, the VLS has published the second training in the series of supplemental trainings on child abuse prevention and reporting. Reporting Child Abuse in Your Program reviews the different types of abuse, the risk factors for abuse among military children, and the long-term impacts of abuse. The training also details how to report suspected incidences of child abuse and neglect in your program. The purpose of the training is to help you understand your obligations to report child maltreatment and the actions that you must take if you suspect abuse or neglect in a child’s home, in your community, or in a DoD Child and Youth Program or sanctioned activity. This required training can be accessed by CYP personnel and family child care providers at the following link: https://www.virtuallabschool.org/st/abuse-2.
To enhance the content reviewed in this training, two new toolkit activities have been developed and added to the Training & Curriculum Specialist (TCS) Foundational Track. In the TCS Child Abuse Identification and Reporting course, Lesson 2, a new activity titled Responding to Direct Disclosures can be found in the Apply section. This activity can be used to discuss with staff how to respond appropriately if a child or youth discloses abuse or neglect. Additionally, Institutional Child Abuse: Role Play Scenarios was added to the Apply section of Lesson 3 of the TCS Child Abuse Identification & Reporting course. Training & Curriculum Specialists can use this tool during staff meetings or trainings to discuss the scenarios with staff and have a conversation about how they would respond and report their suspicions of child maltreatment.
You can review info on the first training of this series in our previous news release. The final training in this series, as well as a Live Leadership Webinar, will be made available later this year. For more information on each of these items, please review the memorandum provided by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy.
Please note that these trainings will not be listed in the VLS website PD catalogs or dashboards and currently can only be accessed via these news releases. The VLS will not be issuing assessments, certificates, or tracking progress. Please consult leadership at your program or Service if you have additional tracking or administrative questions.
Note: We are consulting with Service leadership to review and update the Child Abuse Identification and Reporting course across tracks to ensure consistent messaging around reporting procedures and policies.
