Avoid dangerous practice rather than try to screen out dangerous people.

A literature review for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia revealed that “the best way to reduce the risk of institutional child sexual abuse is to avoid dangerous practice rather than attempt to screen out allegedly dangerous people.”

Effective prevention is based on creating a positive, open and inclusive organisational culture in which the safety of children is paramount. This culture needs to be led by senior management and owned by staff at all levels.

Research shows that screening processes are not as effective as widely believed in the community. While background checking is a useful tool to exclude unsuitable people from joining your organisation, many perpetrators do not have a criminal history and would pass through screening.

What does this mean for your organisation?

Certain characteristics of an organisation can increase the risk of staff members committing sexual crimes against children. These may include the physical condition of the facility, the quality of child safety policies and procedures, training and supervision of staff, and also the less tangible risk factors of culture and environment. It is also important to consider the impact of the power differential between staff or volunteers and the children in contact with the organisation.

Instead of focusing solely on individuals ("Is this person suitable to work here?") make sure you also focus your preventive efforts on reducing risks related to environmental factors (such as isolated classrooms), risky situations (such as one-to-one private sports coaching), and your policies (such as where policies are non-existent or not understood by staff).

This is known as a situational prevention approach.

Get your organisation on the path to effective situational prevention!

Step 1: Brainstorm critical risk factors. Involve your staff in this process to get their buy-in.

Step 2: Develop effective and affordable prevention or risk-reduction solutions for each identified risk. You probably already have protective factors in place. Use these as a base to start from.

Step 3: Prioritise solutions for implementation based on your degree of concern and logistics.

Step 4: Create and take action on simple implementation plans.

Child protection is everyone's business and we need to make sure our organisations are committed to the safety and wellbeing of the children in our care.

Works Cited

Kaufman, K. & Erooga, M. (2016). Risk profiles for institutional child sexual abuse: a literature review.

Kaufman, K. & Patterson, L. (2010). Using sex offenders’ modus operandi to plan more effective prevention programs. In K. Kaufman (ed), The prevention of sexual violence: A practitioner’s sourcebook. Hoyoke, MA: NEARI Press

Kaufman, K., Tews, H., Schuett, J. & Kaufman, B. (2012). Prevention is better than cure: The value of situational prevention in organizations. In M. Erooga (ed), Towards safer organisations – Practical steps to prevent the abuse of children by those working with them. London, England: Wiley Press, Inc