Policies and Procedures To Help Prevent Abuse
Policies inform staff, volunteers, participants, parents and the community what inappropriate behavior can look like and when to tell someone about it.
Did you know that 80% of total abuse cases go unreported?1
Loss trends indicate that sexual abuse is more common today than most people know. Potential offenders are constantly looking for opportunities with the least amount of resistance. No matter if you serve children or older adults, your organization is at risk without a comprehensive abuse prevention program.
The proof is in the numbers, and, according to Praesidium, Inc.™1, the numbers are not currently giving us a positive outlook. Look at these statistics:
- 1 in every 4 girls is abused.
- 1 in every 6 boys is abused.
- 10% of all school children are abused.
- It is estimated that 80% of the total cases go unreported.
In addition, only 3% of predators are caught. Therefore, just one predator can then go on to perpetrate their actions with hundreds of children over time while never being held accountable for their actions.
By exploring the following concepts, you'll learn practical ways to plan ahead, protect your organization and help prevent abuse in your community.
1The Impact of Sexual Abuse | Praesidium (praesidiuminc.com)
Plan
Hiring, Onboarding And Engaging
Staff and volunteers are the face of your organization. It’s crucial they’re informed of potential risks, curating a culture of safety and trained to handle sensitive circumstances appropriately.
Protect
Maintain organizational compliance by providing written policies and procedures in daily operations. Establishing a culture of consistent reporting helps set your organization up for readiness in the event of an abuse case.
Monitoring and Supervising Staff
Abuse can happen in predictable patterns and places. Assessing staff behaviors and their environment is critical when working with employees and volunteers.
How to Identify Danger
What are the common characteristics of an offender? These child sexual abuse statics show us that the problem is embedded and increasingly difficult to identify.
Help Protect Your Organization with a Safety Management System
A Safety Management System (SMS) is a system developed within your organization that is intended to collect important information about the risk of abuse and send it to different levels within the organization.
Respond
How an organization chooses to respond to situations when abuse occurs sets the mood and tone of the organization’s culture. Your response could be the difference between an effective abuse prevention program and one that fails.
What Happens Once Abuse & Neglect is Reported?
Organizational response is the difference between an effective abuse prevention program and one that fails to perform as intended, protecting both the individual and the organization.
Help Mitigate Risk by Responding to Red Flag Behavior
Red-flag behavior does not mean that abuse is happening or that the person is an offender. Rather, it brings attention to the situation and calls attention to the area that needs further investigation.
At Great American, not only do we take loss control seriously, we try to make it easier for our customers to operate in a safer environment. From thermal imaging, various training sessions, and educational information such as our Safety Topics, we provide specialized services to reduce loss potential, loss costs, and control unsafe acts and conditions.
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