Well-developed policies and practices provide a strong foundation for preventing CSA in YSOs. There are many policies and practices that can be adopted across the whole spectrum of YSOs, because they provide basic organizational safety elements that contribute to the prevention of a host of adverse impacts. There is, as yet, little data supporting the impact of specific policies and practices on preventing CSA. Nevertheless, we believe in the value of such safety policies and practices.

At the same time, however, it is clear that individual YSOs should be doing even more to create the safest possible environment for the children and teens that they serve in their specific settings. So, in addition to adopting evidence-based and promising policies and practices, YSOs should also regularly conduct setting-specific assessments to identify their unique safety risks and take steps to remediate these concerns. This, combined with well-conceived general safety policies and practices, will maximize the organization’s safety climate.

Goals. Quite simply, the goal of this effort is to identify and resolve setting-specific YSO safety concerns associated with CSA. To do so, it is necessary to conduct an in-depth assessment to identify the full range of safety risks. Once identified, the YSO will be well positioned to utilize organizational strengths to create solutions tailored to their specific safety needs.

General considerations. While a great deal can be said about the nature of safety risks, a number of primary factors should be considered in addressing this area:

YSO policies and practices are almost exclusively organization wide. In contrast, the process of identifying and resolving specific safety risks should focus on local YSO settings, one at a time. For example, a YSO may complete this process separately for each of its “brick and mortar” sites as well as its co-located school-based programs.

A broad range of risks may contribute to the perpetration of CSA. For example, inadequate supervision of YSO staff, the absence of clear policies prohibiting fraternization with youth outside of YSO programming, inadequate screening and hiring practices, and poorly defined roles for “teen counselors” are just a few of the many risks that may contribute to the risk of CSA in the YSO context.

Efforts should be made to identify as many setting-specific, current safety risks as possible. This will best position the YSO to address the risks that are most likely to lead to CSA as well as other potential youth harms.

Prevention and intervention strategies should be highly tailored to respond to the setting’s identified safety risks, and to be affordable, doable, and sustainable over time.

Assessing Setting-specific YSO Safety Risks

This section provides details regarding the assessment process. It defines the types of risks that should be considered, program stakeholders to include, as well as the safety risk assessment process itself. It focuses on various elements of the YSO’s situation that create risk for CSA.

Types of risks to consider. In seeking to prevent CSA in a variety of settings, attention has historically focused on individual’s personal characteristics as key risk factors. In large part, this has been based on research findings indicating that particular youth characteristics have been associated with CSA victimization, including being female, being under the age of 12 years old, having a disability, having mental health difficulties and/or an intellectual deficit. While numerous attempts have been made, individual factors have not been found to reliably predict CSA perpetrators. Even “industry standard” employee/volunteer background checks fail to screen out a large proportion of YSO candidates who are risk of child abuse. In fact, it is notable that studies have suggested that as many as 95% of new YSO offenders have no history of criminal charges that would appear on a background check. That said, most YSOs and their insurance companies find it worth their while to continue this practice for the small proportion of applicants with a criminal history.

Identifying situational risk factors seems to offer a more broad-based and productive approach to identifying salient areas of YSO safety concern. Situational risk factors are typically defined as including:

• Environmental risks – Those safety risks related to the YSO setting’s physical environment as well as their surrounding community. For example: poorly lit grounds around the facility; unlocked classrooms that go unused during evening programming; and staff offices whose doors lock automatically and lack embedded windows.
• Risky situations – Circumstances and situations that increase youth’s risk of CSA. For example: inadequate staff and volunteer supervision of youth while at the local pool; Staff/volunteers transporting youth on field trips; and “more flexible” rules for older teens that allow them to find secluded locations in and around the YSO setting to engage in sexual behaviors with peers.
• Daily and routine activities – These are behaviors and activities that happen on a regular basis and have the potential to increase the risk of CSA. They may involve the behavior of youth participating in YSO programming and/or YSO staff and volunteers. For example: staff routinely drive a number of younger children home, rather than have them walk alone on cold and dark winter nights; youth stop to play in abandoned buildings on the way to the YSO; and staff “roughhouse” with youth in ways that might be considered physically intrusive.
• Policies – This category reflects missing policies, policies in need of updating, and/or perfectly good policies that may not be adequately communicated to staff/volunteers or may not be enforced as intended. For example: the absence of a policy allows multiple children to linger in the YSO bathroom where staff are not allowed; social media policies that haven’t been updated in number of years create a number of significant safety gaps; and a fraternization policy that prohibits staff from interacting with youth outside of the YSO that is almost never enforced.

Obtaining input from key stakeholders. The goal of identifying the most complete picture of existing safety risks for a particular setting is advanced by including input from a broad range of stakeholders. For most YSOs, core stakeholders will include YSO leadership (both specific to the target location and representing the central YSO leadership and board), setting staff and volunteers, teenage program participants, and participants’ parents reflecting the full age-range served by the YSO.

The safety risk assessment process. YSOs will benefit from bringing together groups of similar stakeholders (e.g., parents, youth participating in the YSO’s programs, staff, and volunteers) in a series of meetings and offering them a structured opportunity to help identify setting-specific safety risks. A combination of individual and group work seems most productive.

A comprehensive list of YSO setting safety risks identified by key groups forms the foundation of efforts to develop solutions to address these concerns.

Addressing Setting-specific Safety Risks

Prioritizing identified risks to guide taking action. Once key individuals representing relevant stakeholder groups have been identified, one method for moving forward is to convene a small work group to prioritize identified safety risks (i.e., 5–7 members). Each member of the work group should be asked to identify their top 10 safety concerns from the comprehensive list of safety risks identified for the target YSO site. Work group members should be asked to prioritize risks based on their urgency as well as the degree of potential harm to youth. They should also be asked to consider and include risks suggested by all stakeholder groups involved in addressing safety concerns, as well as to focus on groups that their organization has control over impacting. Work group members should also be asked to rank order (i.e., #1 = the highest priority risk to address) their top 10 concerns. A staff member should combine each work group member’s top 10 into a single, combined prioritized list of risks for use in the next step of this process.

Generating solutions to identify high-priority safety risks. The same leadership/staff work group should be reconvened to develop tailored solutions to remediate high-priority safety risks. The work group should:

• Develop solutions for safety risks based on their prioritization;
• Select prevention strategies whenever possible, as prevention approaches are more likely to keep the risk from recurring (e.g., locking and alarming all building doors other than the main entrance that requires checking in and out with the person assigned to the main desk);
• Create a risk reduction solution when a prevention strategy is not possible, given the situation (e.g., minimizing youth risk during an “open house” by asking all guests to sign in and wear a name tag reflecting their registration for the event);
• Plan to develop solutions that include all necessary components to create a comprehensive response;
• Note that some solutions will involve efforts to enhance existing policies and practices;
• Identify existing organizational strengths and resources to form the foundation of solutions to address identified safety concerns, whenever possible. If existing strength and resources are not sufficient, create or arrange to access needed solutions to effectively resolve particular safety concerns; and
• Ensure that solutions are affordable, doable based on organizational capacity, and consistent with YSO policies.

The process for the work group to develop solutions for high-priority safety risks is as follows:

• Select a suitable high-priority risk to address that the work group has the ability to resolve;
• Ask the work group to suggest components that they deem necessary to create a high- quality solution. For example, a comprehensive solution to address a lack of adequate youth supervision by staff may include:
  • Creating a new policy that more clearly describes expectations around supervision of YSO youth;
  • Developing a youth supervision staff training module;
  • Arranging for all staff to complete the new training;
  • Creating and posting signs around the building that encouraging staff to focus on high- quality youth supervision;
  • Creating a plan for more closely monitoring staff following the training;
  • Developing individual coaching strategies for staff that would benefit from additional skills enhancement; and
  • Creating an annual booster training to strengthen these skills on an ongoing basis.
• Encourage the work group to draw from existing organizational strengths and resources, whenever possible, as the foundation for solutions. If this is not adequate, new strategies and/ or resources from outside the organization should be considered.
• Once the solution is fully outlined, move on to the next highest priority risk to resolve. Again, invite the work group to develop a comprehensive set of solution components.
• Repeat this process until solutions have been developed for all of the identified risks.

Implementing safety solutions and monitoring progress. The implementation of each solution developed by the work group should be guided by a brief plan that specifies which staff member is responsible for each of the components that make up the solution. This plan should also specify a due date to complete each component as well as track when each component is resolved. The plan will serve as a helpful tool that allows leadership to monitor progress and help resolve barriers to the full completion of the plan.

Revisiting the YSO safety prevention process to ensuring ongoing youth safety. Given the dynamic nature of YSO settings, it is important to repeat this process on a regular basis. Many programs repeat the process annually. Doing so ensures that new safety risks are regularly identified and addressed. Moreover, if previously addressed safety risks arise again, it is an indication that the previously solution has not been effective and needs to be replaced.

Does My Organization Have a Systematic Approach to Addressing Organizational
Specific CSA Safety Risks?

The following table describes critical questions that should be asked to ensure a systematic and effective approach to identifying and addressing organization-specific CSA safety risks. YSO leadership can use this information to assess their current capacity in this area and to work toward enhancing their organizational response.