Risk Management Topics

Nonprofit leaders often seek best practices or standards for excellence for their organizations. But youth-serving nonprofits vary a great deal, making it difficult to standardize youth protection practices throughout the sector.

How to Develop a Youth Protection Program

The process of developing a youth protection program must be nuanced rather than rote. Rather than simply applying a set of minimum standards, a youth-serving nonprofit should tailor its youth protection program to the unique elements of its mission and the needs of its clientele. Though youth protection practices may vary among diverse nonprofits, in NRMC’s experience, all youth-serving organizations share a commitment to inspire and support youth and avoid causing harm.

4 Considerations When Developing a Youth Protection Program

There is no single framework, checklist, or standard for youth protection. NRMC believes youth-serving organizations must thoughtfully consider a number of key factors to design and implement youth protection measures.

In NRMC’s book, The Season of Hope, and its predecessor, The Child Abuse Prevention Primer, we refer to the “4 P’s: Personnel, Participants, Program, and Premises”, as outlined below:

1. Personnel (Staffing)

Some youth-serving programs should be staffed by individuals with advanced degrees, while others may be staffed by mature teens and young adults. If you offer direct services to children and youth, supervision is essential to the safety of service recipients.

Example: Confirmation classes at a community church are taught by an ordained minister, while Vacation Bible School activities are led by teenage members of the church.

2. Participant Mix

While some youth-serving nonprofits offer single-sex programs and others deliver services to participants within a narrow age range, most youth-serving nonprofits work with a diverse mix of young children as well as teens, some of whom have special needs. The participant mix shapes the risks facing the organization, which affects decisions about staffing, programs, and the program environment.

Example: A youth-serving organization’s daycare center is staffed by one teacher for each small group of 4-6-year-old children. The organization’s after-school adventure program, involving multiple teens between the ages of 13-17 who take afternoon hikes, is staffed by two adults.

3. Program and Mission

The mission of an organization and the nature of its programs and services are key in developing youth protection measures.

Example: A mentoring organization matches responsible adults with children who lack great adult role models. The organization encourages the pairs to attend cultural events, educational events, and spend time nurturing the interests and life goals of the child. The mission of a small charter school is to nurture the intellect of its students, as well as their interest in science. All school activities are held in classrooms in the school, or on the school grounds. The mentoring organization might focus on intensive screening and youth protection training for its mentors, who interact with children one-on-one, while the charter school might focus on enforcing organization-wide youth protection policies to ensure employees practice only authorized photography, appropriate forms of physical contact and ‘two-deep supervision’ (having two adult supervisors present at all times).

4. Premises: The Environment in Which Programs are Delivered

From camping trips to rural areas, to rides in home-built aircraft to mission trips overseas, there are far more differences than similarities in the environments where children learn and grow. Some risks are unique to the venues in which programs are conducted, but it’s also important to recognize that all programs and activities offer access to children. A child molester–or a person with the proclivity to abuse children–can use a nonprofit program to gain access to children and then try to form relationships that offer opportunities for out-of-program contact (e.g., contact that occurs outside the sanctioned/ supervised activities conducted by the nonprofit).

Example: A school serving deaf and hard of hearing students rejects an offer by a teacher to take students for rides in his private airplane. An association of aviation enthusiasts promotes its mission by providing rides for children in four-seat airplanes, some of them home-built aircraft.

Although it is impossible to guarantee a safe environment or promise parents that their children are immune from harm, the public rightly expects that community-serving organizations will take time to understand the risks that arise from the organization’s mission and respond promptly to complaints of misconduct. Yet no system of prevention will be perfect and eliminate the risk of harm.

Want to dive deeper into the topics of Youth Protection and Child Safety for nonprofits?

Check out Risk Management Essentials: The Youth Protection Issue. Inside you’ll find:

Be sure to also check out these additional NRMC publications: