Teach

Most of the staff you work with are incredibly hard-working and love children. It is probably difficult to imagine any of them intentionally harming a child. Unfortunately, it has occurred in child care and other youth-serving organizations. Your program has policies in place that help protect staff and protect children. This lesson will help prepare you to teach, model, and observe these policies in staff members.

The Department of Defense makes every effort to ensure the safety and well-being of children involved in DoD facilities, such as schools and child development centers, or DoD-sponsored activities, such as youth sports or recreation programs. This includes conducting thorough background checks and training all staff and volunteers involved with these facilities and programs.

Facility Operations

Your building has been designed and furnished to prevent opportunities for child abuse. You will need to help staff become aware of the features of your facility that protect children and staff. The Infant and Toddler, Preschool, and School-age courses on child abuse reporting contain information about the features of facilities that keep children and staff safe from allegations of abuse. (They are also available in this track, Child Abuse: Prevention, Lesson Five.) If you are not familiar with the features of your facilities that are designed to prevent abuse, we encourage you to review the direct care coursework and watch the video entitled “Facilities that Protect Children from Harm.”

Your program also has policies and procedures in place to prevent child abuse and neglect. You will need to work with management to teach staff members about these policies and procedures. Here is an overview of what staff will need to know:

Hiring & Staffing Procedures

All staff members are carefully screened before hiring. Background checks are conducted and records are maintained.MIL A staff member who has been accused of child abuse or neglect in the program will be reassigned to a position without contact with children while the case is investigated. Records will be maintained, so individuals that have abused or neglected a child are not re-hired at different facilities or installations.

Maximum Group Size and Accountability

Your program follows standards for high-quality early care and education settings. Small group sizes and adequate adult supervision (with at least two staff members supervising children at all times) minimize the risk of child abuse and neglect. As a T&CS, you should already be familiar with the maximum group sizes and ratios for your program. You will learn more about enforcing adult-child ratios and maximum group size in the Safety course. For now, understand that maximum group sizes, safe ratios, and adequate supervision minimize the risk of institutional child abuse and neglect.

Guidance and Discipline Policy

The program leaders have worked MILclosely with the Family Advocacy Program (FAP) to develop a guidance and discipline policy that represents best practices in the field. In the Explore section of the direct care lessons, staff members are asked to work with their manager to get a copy of the Guidance and Discipline policy for your program. You might be involved in helping staff members read and understand the policy. This policy statement describes acceptable and unacceptable forms of guidance and discipline in your program. You might be responsible for ensuring staff members receive and understand the policy. You will be responsible for making sure staff members follow the policy at all times, so make sure you are very familiar with the policy yourself.

Make sure staff members know and follow guidance and discipline policies. Your policy may include guidelines such as:

Make sure you communicate with staff about the boundaries for touching children or youth. Touch is an important part of nurturing relationships between adults and children. It is also an opportunity to teach children the language of consent. Staff members should ask children before engaging in touch (“Would you like a hug?”, “Are you ready for a diaper change?”). Touch can be harmful when used inappropriately. Make sure staff members understand and follow these guidelines:

Child Accountability and Supervision: Admission and Release

Your program has standard operating procedures for the admission and release of children. Learn about your program’s policies related to releasing children. Children should only be released to:

• Parents or legal guardians
• Individuals the parents or legal guardians have authorized in writing
• In emergencies, legally authorized individuals such as emergency medical responders, police, or child welfare workers

Individuals who arrive to pick up a child should be asked for photo identification before proceeding to the child’s classroom.

Open-Door Policy

Parents and families should have access to all parts of the building while their child is in the program’s care. This does not mean strangers can roam the building. Rather, programs must provide controlled access (sign-in, secure entrances). Providing an open door to families makes the program more family-friendly, encourages partnerships between families and staff, and makes the program’s operations more transparent. There should be no “secret” spaces.

Field Trip Procedures

The risk of injury increases when children leave the facility. Your program has specific procedures for keeping children safe on field trips. You will need to make sure staff know and follow these procedures every time they leave the facility. You will learn more about keeping children safe on field trips in the Safety course. Make sure staff know the importance of:

• Obtaining your manager’s approval for trips.
• Obtaining signed permission slips from parents and guardians.
• Recruiting volunteers as needed.
• Preparing for emergencies: emergency contacts, first aid kit, and signed permission slips are taken on the trip.
• Maintaining a list of adult volunteers and staff members on the trip. Assign adults to specific supervision roles and make sure ratios are maintained by staff members.
• Providing a “visual identity” for your group: identical t-shirts, bandanas, or hats. Do not put names on shirts or badges. These can be used by strangers to lure children into dangerous situations.
• Reviewing safety rules before and during the trip. Safety rules should include policies that prevent abuse and neglect such as:

Model

• Enforce your program’s Guidance and Touch policy. Make sure staff members understand it. If you see a staff member violate the policy, act immediately. Ignoring violations sends the message that these behaviors are OK. Talk with the staff member and help him or her reflect on appropriate guidance strategies. Spend time in the classroom or program modeling for the staff member. Follow-through to make sure the staff member uses appropriate strategies consistently.
• Communicate the value of facility security features like closed-circuit television, vision panels, fencing, and security check-in procedures. Do not allow staff members to block cameras, cover vision panels, or in any other way diminish the value of these features. Help staff know that these features of the facility protect them as much as they protect children.
• Observe children for possible signs of abuse or neglect in the program. When you have a concern, make a report to Child Protective Services (CPS) to FAP, law enforcement, (your Reporting Point of Contact (RPOC) in Army programs) and CPS, following your Service and installation policy. They will investigate.

Observe

Recognizing Child Abuse and Neglect in Center Settings

Caring for children can be a stressful job. There can be a fine line between inappropriate caregiving practices and child abuse. When in doubt, talk to other program leaders or the FAP. In the course on Preventing Child Abuse in Center Settings, you will learn more about positive guidance strategies. Sometimes, caregiving practices cross the line into maltreatment and even abuse. You will learn more about that in the next course. This lesson focuses on clear examples of child abuse or neglect in center settings. If you see a pattern of any of these signs or behaviors, you might suspect child abuse or neglect in your setting and would make a report:

Ensuring Staff Adhere to Program Policies and Procedures

You will learn much more about how to help staff promote child development and use appropriate guidance strategies in other Virtual Lab School courses, such as Child Abuse: Prevention and Positive Guidance. For now, focus on observing and providing feedback on staff’s adherence to the other policies and procedures you have read about in this course. Reflect on the following scenarios and make sure that you promote consistency in your program.

Although we can never be 100% certain that children will be safe at all times, following the procedures and practices outlined in this lesson and in the course you have just completed is a good first step towards protecting children from child abuse and neglect in your program.