Organisational child protection –
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

[Originally written in October 2005 by Marie Wernham for the Consortium for Street Children with the assistance of Chris Beddoe from ECPAT UK. Adapted here by MW for CREATE]

Much of the following information is taken from “Child Protection Policies and Procedures Toolkit: How to Create a Child-Safe Organisation” by Elanor Jackson & Marie Wernham (ChildHope, March 2005). You are strongly advised to refer to it, as it offers a practical training guide for introducing, developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating child protection policies and procedures within organisations.

The basics

1. What is ‘child protection’?
2. What is a ‘child protection policy’?
3. What is ‘child abuse’?
4. Why do we need child protection policies and procedures?
5. My organisation is based in the UK and does not have direct contact with children: do we still need a policy and procedures?
6. What are the consequences of not having a child protection policy and procedures in place?
7. What do child protection policies and procedures involve?
8. We don’t have time to deal with this. What’s the bare minimum we have to do?
9. What’s the most important thing I need to know?
10. How can I do police checks outside England and Wales?
11. Is there an international register of child sex offenders that I can check?
12. Child protection is all about doing police checks, right?
13. What materials, information and support exist to help me?

Overseas partner organisations

1. How do I raise the issue of child protection with my overseas partner organisation?
2. My overseas partner organisation is offended that I have raised this issue: what should I do?
3. My organisation is thinking of making links with, and possibly supporting, a new partner overseas. What can I do to ‘check out’ their child protection situation?

Dealing with concerns

1. I suspect that there is a problem with someone in the organisation. I have heard rumours about a member of staff. What should I do?
2. What do I do if a child makes an allegation?
3. How do I know if an allegation that has been made is true or false? (In the country where my partner organisation works, there is a culture of making false allegations to discredit individuals)

Criminal Records Bureau (CRB)

1. What is the ‘Criminal Records Bureau’?
2. What is the difference between ‘basic’, ‘standard’ and ‘enhanced’ disclosures?