Ongoing accountability is an essential hallmark of a YSO that is safe for children. A YSO environment lacks sufficient accountability when there are gaps in critical CSA prevention and safety information, policies, and practices. Moreover, accountability requires YSOs to have systems to document consistent implementation of policies and practices, and evaluations of their impact. YSO environments with an absence of these safety measures create a climate where undesirable events are more likely to happen. As well, they lack mechanisms to learn from adverse incidents, respond appropriately to them, and reduce their future likelihood.

Accountability. We use accountability broadly, to indicate completeness of safety planning, documentation of safety planning, and adherence to safety planning. An essential condition for ensuring organizational accountability is the leaders’ demonstrated commitment to it at the organization-wide level, and their willingness to themselves be made accountable at the individual level. When leaders reinforce organizational commitment to child wellbeing and to expected behavior, they help ensure the development of organizational norms that prioritize child wellbeing.

This leadership by example is extremely powerful in developing a positive culture to protect children and youth. Leaders need to subject themselves and other powerful individuals in the organization to the same policies, rules, and norms that are imposed on staff and volunteers—and to hold themselves and other powerful individuals accountable for any breaches.

Evaluation. To enable accountability, it is essential for the YSO to have a system to evaluate and continuously review and improve its prevention efforts.

It is important to determine the degree of adherence to policies and rules designed to prevent, identify, and/or address unprofessional behavior and higher-risk situations. Because of their salience, higher-risk activities should be subject to a particularly strong level of scrutiny to ensure appropriate evaluation and accountability.

An important mechanism for this type of evaluation is through surveys or interviews with YSO participants (e.g., children, adolescents, and parents). These evaluation methods can identify whether rules and policies are known, observed, or breached, and to what extent. These surveys can be conducted not only with staff and volunteers, but also with children and parents. In particular, staff and volunteers may be in a unique position to identify occasional or routine violations of policies, rules, and norms, including violations committed by themselves and by other members of the organization.

In conducting such surveys, protections need to be in place for participants, and reassurances provided of confidentiality and non-reprisal.

A positive child safe culture is characterized by a context in which people are encouraged to speak up about problems and are even rewarded for doing so.

Policies, rules, or norms that are found to be often or sometimes violated should be targeted for review. These reviews can consider salience (by asking: is this rule actually needed?), implementation considerations (by asking: how can we best implement this rule?), and feasibility (by asking: what is a realistic way to achieve the goal of this rule?).

Surveys and other evaluation mechanisms provide an opportunity to identify the underlying cause of a broader problem. This enables the YSO to improve policies and practices to reduce the risk of CSA and occasional or routine rule violations. Such outcomes are far superior to a simple conclusion that an adverse event is a “one-off” incident that was unavoidable.

Organizations sometimes argue or assume that violations are infrequent and involve only “a few bad apples.” However, if objective internal evaluations identify policies that are more regularly or broadly violated, the organization can understand that a problem transcends individual violations.

Leaders must be at the forefront of the organization’s efforts to implement a robust system of monitoring, reporting, measurement, and oversight. Since transparency is a hallmark of a healthy organizational environment, these actions should involve input from staff and volunteers, and results should be shared. Staff know what happens on the ground and can often identify both problems and solutions.

Other mechanisms are also useful. Individual staff reviews can offer a chance to better supervise and support YSO staff, hear about their progress and problems, and learn from their insights. Peer support systems, properly led by senior trusted staff, can also provide a forum for open conversation and institutional learning. These two-way feedback loops can occur on an ongoing informal basis through everyday conversations, in addition to formal staff reviews.

Independent external oversight is also a reassuring hallmark of healthy institutions. The YSO should ideally build in a mechanism for external independent oversight, to ensure the YSO is not innocently or otherwise failing to meet its own standards. This oversight should happen periodically at practicable periods. The YSO should also be able to seek ad hoc advice from independent specialist agencies to investigate failures and recommend improvements. Individuals should also have a confidential external agency to which they can turn, in cases where there is a systemic or supervisory problem. All these options should be formally recorded and communicated as part of the YSO’s systematic approach to evaluation and accountability.

Does My Organization Have a System to Increase Evaluation and Accountability?

This table identifies critical questions that are central to achieving good practice in organizational evaluation and accountability. Leaders can use these questions and suggested strategies to create their organization’s approach to evaluation and accountability.