CPT IRT

As part of auditing your policies, it is important to recognize that you need not, and likely cannot, do it by yourself. Particularly in regard to auditing and drafting your child protection policies, you need to put together a team to help you. A Child Protection Team (CPT) and Incident Response Team (IRT) will not only distribute the workload, but you can benefit from differing viewpoints and expertise.

One comment I hear from clients is that small groups with limited staff simply can’t assemble a team of people to work on a project. If yours is a small organization, try looking beyond your paid staff. Look at your Board, volunteers, alumni, parents, and donors. Find people who are committed to your organization and willing to give time and expertise to making your program safer for the young people you serve. Updating your child protection policies is a big task – tap into your community to help you do it right.

When recruiting your teams, look particularly for expertise related to each team’s major tasks. One person can fill several roles, particularly in small organizations. Your goal is not to have a lot of people, but to be certain that you have input from people with expertise for the tasks you will need to do.

Child Protection Team

The CPT focuses on prevention policies, such as screening, interaction rules, and acceptable behavior boundaries. For these tasks, you need people with expertise in prevention policies.

– Representatives from stakeholder groups — These groups will understand your program, and they will be better able than outsiders to know what policies will actually work in your organization. Good intentions may work in other contexts, but when it comes to child protection policies, good intentions alone will just set you up for trouble later. The first rule of child protection policies is to be sure that your staff and volunteers can actually implement them and make them a part of your culture. These representatives will understand your program from the inside out and be able to help you evaluate particular policies. Look for people from all of your stakeholder groups, including your Board, administration, staff, parents, current clients or alumni, and donors.

– Experts in child protection – Experts, whether consultants or people in your program willing to learn the ropes, will help you learn the policies that similar organizations in your area apply and how they implement them. Good experts also will be able to help you adapt general principles to your particular organization.

– People with authority to change policies and procedures – It won’t do much good to develop a policy that just sits in a file of recommendations. Be certain that someone on the team has the authority to actually enact the policies that the team crafts.

Incident Response Team

The IRT focuses on policies related to detecting and responding to policy violations. Thus, this team develops policies to protect whistleblowers, train staff and volunteers in mandated reporter obligations, work with official investigations, conduct internal investigations, and handle communications with your community and the press. For the IRT, you need people with expertise in responding to violations and maltreatment claims, and willing to start now developing policies before any incidents arise.

– Insurance expert – You need someone who can review your current policies to be sure that you are covered for all of your risks. You also need someone to help you start locating prior insurance policies in case you ever have to deal with a claim of historic abuse.

– Attorney – An attorney can help you be aware of the risks you face, as well as help parse your state’s mandated reporter law.

– Public Relations – You will need someone to help you draft communications to your clients, their parents, your employees, and the general public.

– Client/Parent Contact – Someone will need to the main point of contact for your clients and their parents, as well as the alleged victim. This can be someone in the administration or, in the case of the victim, someone that they have a good relationship with. If you have a counselor on staff, they can fulfill this role, as long as they are clear that they represent your organization and are not creating a counseling relationship with anyone.

– Employee Contact – Don’t overlook the fact that your employees have legitimate questions about the allegations or incident. Have someone in your organization tasked with being a transparent as you can, consistent with confidentiality and official investigation restrictions.

– Accused Contact – The person accused may not be willing to talk to you or may be willing to communicate only through an attorney. If you can open a channel of communication, have a person tasked with doing so.

– Law Enforcement/Agency Contact – If the incident is the subject of an official investigation, you will need someone to work with them, respond to questions, provide documents, and possibly facilitate interviews. An attorney or someone with law enforcement experience would be an optimal person for this task.

– Information Manager – Finally, you need someone who will keep track of all of your internal documents, which agencies have received which documents from you, and where you keep all of the relevant files. It is easy to lose track of documents, so designate someone who has the bandwidth to do the job well.

Reviewing and updating child protection policies can be a monumental task, but it should not be a one-person job. Tap into the expertise, time, and willingness of your community. Recruiting other people will both help keep you from being overwhelmed and let you learn from a variety of experts.