Child Safeguarding is Not a Choice.
It is a Responsibility.

Let’s be honest, despite our best efforts, we can’t be with our children all the time.

Many children have both parents working, or they come from single-parent families who depend on one income for wages and benefits. Unemployment is not an option.

Children attend school or daycare, and they may be involved in sports, music, or other after-school activities. They may participate in faith-based youth programs or community service and leadership programs. They may rely on aid or peacekeeping operations. 

Parents rely on organizations to protect their children from violence, exploitation, and abuse when under their care.

Organizations have a duty of care to children with whom they work, are in contact with, or who are affected by their work and operations, yet day after day, year after year, we see or read in the news where organizations have miserably failed the children entrusted to their care. 

In the USA alone, well-documented sexual abuse scandals include:

• USA Gymnastics team ($380 million in settlements and over 150 victims), 
• Penn State University – Jerry Sandusky ($109 million in settlements and 33 victims), 
• University of Southern California ($825 million in settlements and approx. 700 victims),
• Michigan State University ($500 million in settlements and 332 victims), 
• University of Michigan ($490 million in settlements and 1050 victims),
• Catholic Church ($3 billion in settlements to date, and well-over 500 victims), 
• Boy Scouts of America ($850 million in settlements to date, and more than 84,000 victims, and the list goes on and on.  

These are organizations that many parents trusted because, the assumption was, that they had robust child safeguarding policies in place protecting children from harm.

Protecting children from harm includes misconduct by staff, associates, and others; poor practice; and operational activities that may harm or put children at risk due to poor design or delivery. Their policies may have improved, but the damage has already been done.