“But we ran a background check.” Nine times out of 10, these are the first words spoken by leadership after an employee has been arrested on allegations of child sexual abuse or possession of child sexual abuse materials.
Every time we hear these words, they break our spirit a little because working with minors and leading people who work with minors calls for so much more than checking a box. Yet, here we are. It’s 2024, and one out of every 10 children in the United States will experience sexual abuse before their 18th birthday.
If you work or volunteer in childcare, preschool, K-12, youth sports leagues, after-school sports, after-school co-curricular activities and clubs; if you work at an overnight summer camp or day camp; or if you work with minors in any way — consider this your call to action to be so much more than the person who checks the box.
Abuse prevention goes well beyond one day of mandated training or the ability to recognize signs of abuse. Abuse prevention in the digital age requires immense leadership and a transformative shift in understanding regarding how we incorporate abuse prevention into every element of our youth-serving programs, classrooms and out-of-school activities.
Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know, and it becomes difficult to determine if our training and policies on abuse prevention are the most effective they can be. Why isn’t a background check sufficient? What is the difference between effective boundaries training, education on grooming, and abuser red flags? What about mandated reporting, sexual harassment, ethical consent, and a myriad of other topics? And how do youth-serving programs engage in impactful training without scaring volunteers and staff?
We do this with a holistic approach to abuse prevention and acknowledging that effective workshops, scenarios and conversations on creating and maintaining safe spaces are a form of leadership development and not just risk mitigation.
Most youth-serving programs are incubators of leaders, multitaskers and creative thinkers. Youth-serving programs are often a pivotal early job environment where college-age and young-adult staff become our first line of defense in all challenges. We must implement effective boundaries and train on the nexus between boundaries and grooming behavior. When we implement mandatory training on healthy boundaries and behaviors, we empower our young staff to develop and define their leadership principles in physical and emotional safety.
These skills will prepare our next generation of leaders, teachers, administrators and youth-serving professionals to redefine healthy connections. We must empower our future shapers of young minds to build connections without crossing boundaries, to identify grooming behavior and unsafe practices with children, and to become a major piece of the solution to keeping kids safe.
We believe this is critical in all leadership development, the ripples of which may change how the next generation navigates abuse in our communities.
If you’re a parent, you might be asking, “What can I do?”
If you work for a school, a youth-serving organization or you volunteer with youth, you might be asking, “What can I do?”
You can start by asking two salient questions:
—What specific policies do you have on boundaries, identifying grooming behavior, mandatory reporting, sexual harassment and ethical consent?
—Can you share with me how you train on these topics and why your training is effective?
A large percentage of sexually abused children never disclose their experiences. Background checks will only tell you if someone has been convicted of a crime as an adult. They won’t tell you the story of how an individual engaged with youth in the past. They won’t help a camp, school or youth organization determine someone’s ability to navigate boundaries with youth — and they will never identify grooming behavior.
Background checks are important, and, at a minimum, we should be able to check this box. As a country, we need to fund and implement mandated, comprehensive, national criminal background checks for all employees and volunteers working in youth-serving organizations. With that said, it’s time to do more than check a box.
Overall risk-management plans need more vetting strategies, such as formal application processes, interviews that include relevant scenario questions, and reference checks. And it’s high time we prioritize abuse prevention through education on what healthy boundaries look like through leadership in practice and policy.
