Instill throughout the organization a dedication to child wellbeing and safety as a paramount goal and a prevailing culture. Every YSO has a specific mission that guides its policies and practices and as well as the selection, recruitment, and retention of child participants. Child safe organizations orient their policies and practices to first support child wellbeing and safety overall, and then to achieve mission-specific goals. Child wellbeing and safety are prioritized through:

Instill throughout the organization the importance of developing caring and professional adult relationships with children. Children benefit from caring relationships with adults—relationships in which the adult’s responsibility for a child manifests as positive affect towards the whole child, listening and being attentive to the child as an individual, and responding to that child’s individual needs.40 The development of such relationships is fundamental to the success of YSOs. Indeed, the development of caring relationships with children by adult staff and volunteers may be the one unifying theme across all YSOs, whether they seek to enhance children’s arts, athletics, civic duty, education, religion, or more general success and wellbeing.

Without professionalism, however, caring relationships may devolve into abusive or exploitative relationships. The adults who comprise a YSO, including leaders, staff, and volunteers, are all considered professionals due to their overriding commitment to the children they serve and because these adults avail themselves of state-of-the-art knowledge to support their child participants. For example, adults at a youth sports organization are considered professionals as a result of their efforts to ensure the wellbeing of children and because they learn specific techniques to help children develop specific athletic skills. By comparison, adults who work at a sports- oriented retail store are not professionals, in the sense that they may legitimately prioritize selling their products over the needs of children and regardless of any actual benefit to children.

Professionalism within the context of caring relationships serves to maintain boundaries so that caring relationships do not become intimate relationships.

Professionalism encourages appropriate and thoughtful behavior towards children, behavior that is in the support of the organization’s mission and more generally in the service of child wellbeing.

Overtly address boundary violations. Caring and professional relationships can deteriorate into inappropriate and harmful relationships through boundary violations that increase the intimacy of a relationship. Boundary violations may result from someone’s overt efforts to undermine organizational policy and procedure intended to protect children. More commonly, however, boundary violations result from a lack of knowledge, momentary lapses in memory or judgment, or as a result of the adult’s negative feelings (e.g., anger, envy, frustration, bias) or displaced needs (e.g., for attention, flattery, friendship, power, sex). For example, displaced needs for affection or adulation may cause a coach to violate several boundaries in order to spend extra time with a particular child. Boundary violations can be prevented through the provision of regular training in combination with the establishment of clear policies and consistent supervision of organizational staff and volunteers.

Foster a child safe culture. Child safe cultures consist of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs about the importance of child wellbeing and safety relative to other organizational goals, and about the means by which children can be safeguarded. For example, a child safe culture in a youth sports organization would prioritize child safety over that organization’s goal of enhancing child participants’ fitness and athletic skills.

Caring and professional relationships thrive in organizations with a child safe culture.

When leaders, staff, and volunteers share assumptions, values, and beliefs in regards to the ends and means related to child safety, they will be more likely to do the right thing when confronted with situations that are not explicitly covered by safety policy or practice guidelines (e.g., when confronting situations not anticipated by child safe rules and regulations).

Lead by example. Leaders can instill caring and professional behavior and develop child safe cultures by paying close attention to the practical and the symbolic significance of their behavior. Leaders champion and model compliance with organizational policies, practices, and codes of behavior. Certainly, the manner in which leaders interact with children or how they discuss children during formal and informal meetings will influence how staff and volunteers perceive and treat the children in their care. Likewise, the manner in which leaders interact with staff and volunteers will have a strong impact on organizational culture. The people leaders hire and fire, the behaviors leaders reward and sanction, the issues to which leaders attend, the way in which leaders react to crises, and leaders’ overall behavior, more generally, are all critical sources of information to staff and volunteers. All of these factors influence the development of caring and professional adult-child relationships.

Establish strong policies and practices to convey the importance of caring and professional relationships within a context of child safety. Creating a positive organizational climate through the establishment of child safe policies and practices and a code of conduct that clearly articulate a commitment to treating children with caring and professionalism and the development of a child safe culture.

For example,

a youth sports club’s organizational policies could lead with an overt commitment to the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of children and overtly state that this commitment supersedes the organization’s mission to improve children’s athletic skill.

Organizational practices are instituted to emphasize this commitment. For example, a youth sports organization could foster caring and professional relationships and a child safe culture by instituting awards ceremonies that acknowledge coaches for the holistic development of the children they supervise, rather than solely the competitive success of their teams.

Use child-focused language. How we label children and their behavior influences how we think about and treat them. Leaders, staff, and volunteers can contribute to the development of caring and professional relationships and a child safe culture by referring to child participants in conversation and formal communications as “children” (which draws attention to their vulnerable status) rather than labels that decontextualize age and/or overemphasize organizational goals.

For example,

verbal and written communications in a youth sports organization should refer to “children” rather than “athletes” or even “child athletes.” The term “athlete” fails to convey a child’s younger and more vulnerable developmental status relative to that of an adult athlete.

Moreover, the terms “athlete” and “child athlete” both keep the focus on the goal of improving athletic skill, rather than caring for children. Teenagers much prefer being referred to as “teens” rather than “children,” and this label recognizes their developmental status relative to both adults and children. However, the use of “young men” or “young women”—while often meant to compliment or inspire teens or younger children—also decontextualizes age and may cause adults to lose track of the developmental differences between children and adults.

Does My Organization Make Child Wellbeing and Safety Its Highest Priority?

This table identifies critical questions that are arguably at the heart of creating child safe organizations that epitomize child wellbeing and safety. Leaders can use these questions and suggested strategies, and those throughout this guide, to create their organization’s policies and practices and to assess the impact of those policies and practices with regard to child safety and wellbeing.