KCS Safeguarding conference- FInal Arij Bou Reslan

The Minimum
Actions for
Child
Safeguarding
in
Emergencies
Arij Bou Reslan
Child Safeguarding Conference- Cape Town
Why minimum actions?
• Challenges faced by organizations in applying
the minimum standards.
• For all organizations especially those who are
not working in child protection programs or
have safeguarding policies.
• To protect children from the risks that
organizations might impose on them due to its
actions or staff.
Where do they come from?
• Sphere Project
• Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability
• Minimum Inter-Agency Standards for Protection Mainstreaming
• Minimum Standards for Child Protection in humanitarian Action
• KCS Child Safeguarding Minimum Standards
• KCS safeguarding children in Emergency among others
• Presenter’s experience in working in various emergency settings
• Consulting with child safeguarding specialists from War Child
Holland, Terre des hommes, and Save the Children who have also
worked in emergencies.
Minimum actions:
Principles:
• The golden rule when working with children: “DO NO
HARM”, the best interest of the child, and child
participation- children have a voice.
• The right to life with dignity and, therefore, a right to
assistance; and second, that “all possible steps should
be taken to alleviate human suffering arising out of
disaster or conflict” and thus protection (Sphere
project).
Child safeguarding is rooted in understanding the risks to
children from the organization, (its staff, programmes
and operations) and addressing those risks with
measures that create child-safe organizations.
The minimum actions for safeguarding will be divided
between actions that aim for “Prevention” and actions
that aim for “Response” to child safeguarding issues.
In other words proactive actions and reactive actions.
As these are the minimum actions, the word “SHOULD” has
been used to emphasize that.
Prevention:
proactive actions
1. Child Protection Policy
1.1. Your Organization should have a child protection policy in
place prior to an emergency.
1.2. Role of donors in ensuring child safeguarding
(Having a child safeguarding policy does not mean that all
harm to children is eliminated. It means that the
organization does everything possible to minimize risk and
respond to it)
2. Design and Operation
2.1. During the designing of the program-the intervention (the stage
of proposal writing) there should be a child protection risk
assessment.
Except for the lifesaving interventions when there is no time for
assessments and where immediate actions are needed, then the
following actions become fundamental. Other organizations should
afford a couple of days to do basic CP need assessment.
2.2. Coordination and sharing experience is very important and
indeed crucial in order to inform the program design and best
practice in addition to familiarizing oneself with the context. All
agencies should have access to UNHCR or UNICEF 4Ws mapping, and
should have an updated mapping of the legal, safeguarding /
protection, community infrastructure and other services (incl. health,
psychosocial) provided by local authorities and other humanitarian
3. Partnerships
When partners don’t have their own CPP, they should
comply with the organization Safeguarding Policy under
the partnership agreement
4.Staff
4.1. All posts should be risk assessed according to the level of contact
with children. Job descriptions should be clear and precise. And the
advertisement should always include the organization’s CSP.
4.2. All interviews should include a discussion on child safeguarding, the
candidate’s understanding of this and the organization’s commitment.
4.3. Conduct as many background checks as possible; as it is not always
possible consider the use of probationary periods of employment to
ensure suitability once in post.
4.4. Code of Conduct (CoC) should be tailored to each task. This gives a
reference for each staff member on the behavior that they should or
should not do. A detailed CoC can also help in case there is a high
turnover of staff.
4.5 Always participate in the recruitment of staff and volunteers who will
work with your partners. When staff are already working for the partner
organization, ensure that the job description is clear and the code of
conduct is tailored to their tasks.
4.6. 2-3 hours induction training for ALL staff: signing the CPP or the Code
of conduct is not enough to ensure that the staff know the expected
behavior and if and how they can report about any abuse. This is why a
two hours training is very essential to explain those procedures in details.
4.7. CP focal points can support the staff/ volunteers in understanding the
behavior expected of them and mapping relevant CP agencies. They
should act as a resource person to receive complains and allegations and
channel them.
4.8. Make sure that staff are easily identifiable when at work,
for example by wearing a T-shirt or badge.
4.9. For international organizations: make it a regular practice
to prepare staff and have CPP/ code of conduct training
before deployment.
4.10. Provide self-care sessions: ensure employees and others
working in hazardous, stressful and emotionally demanding
situations are well trained, supervised and supported. Abuse
might be physical because of culturally accepted norms or
because of stress (managing large number of children in CFS).
5. Community
5.1. Children and the community should know about the CPP and
Code of conduct, in addition to the reporting mechanism for any
allegation.
5.2. These should be displayed and communicated in centers,
food and NFI distribution points, mosques, churches, schools,
etc. with easy to read- understandable posters that include
phone numbers of the CP focal point, manager and CP resource
person in HQ. Complaints boxes should also be available.
5.3. When possible, it is important that children and
communities are consulted about child safeguarding response
mechanisms that will be linked with local child protection
systems at community and national level.
Response:
reactive actions
1.
Managers have a responsibility to ensure that a clear, detailed
reporting mechanism (e.g. Raising Concerns Framework) by
which concerns can be raised quickly and effectively is in place,
visible in the form of a poster in each project location and
translated into local languages where necessary.
2. Reporting mechanism in place: - internal/external (if not a CP
organization then refer to other organizations who are
specialized in CP issues)
3. Weekly/bi-weekly meeting to discuss cases of child safeguarding
and to give a space for staff to express their fears, concerns,
doubts.
4. For CP referring cases/during assessment: if a safety concern and
CP concerns arise even if not the mandate of the agency it should
be reported to the concerned agencies.
Conclusion
• IT SHOULD BE A MUST TO HAVE CSP/CPP PRIOR TO AN
EMERGENCY, even if children are not direct beneficiaries and
regardless of whether it is a protection agency or not.
• Donors should ensure this. lets advocate!
• If partner organizations do not have CSP, then it is a MUST
that they comply with the organization CPP and its reporting
mechanism.
• Organizations should design their programs in a way that
adds no harm to children and thus a comprehensive CP risk
assessments in needed at early stages. Coordination with
organizations and agencies working in the field become a
must.
• Recruitment of staff, volunteers and partners, should ensure that
they are aware of the CPP and the code of conduct in addition to
the “concern reporting mechanism”. Signing those documents IS
NOT enough. Induction training, even for couple of hours, would
help them understand the behavior expected from them and how
to report a concern in a confidential way.
• CP focal points play an essential role to ensure an awareness of
these issues and to act as a resource person to support the team
on the ground and to ensure that communities and children are
aware of the organization’s commitments to safeguard children
and of the means for reporting incidents.
• Finally, CPP and the reporting mechanisms and procedures should
be always in place and tailored to the context. However, the
minimum standards should be always respected and adhered to at
any single point within the organization.
Q&A
Lets learn from each other!

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