Helping Partners Develop or Strengthen Their Organizational Child Protection Policies

Catholic Relief Services has developed a facilitator’s guide to help organizations develop or further strengthen their policies to protect children. This guide is meant to help partners increase their understanding of the issues involved in safeguarding children as well as best practices for organizations in creating safe, protective environments.

Different partners and organizations are at different stages in this process. This facilitation guide is therefore designed in several modules, to allow partners to pick and choose those that are most appropriate for their needs. Not all partners will need all modules. 

Several of the modules help an organization to develop key components of a protection policy, such as behavioral do’s and don’ts, using a sample model of CRS’ internal reporting mechanisms and other community resources. These modules explain important protection concepts and essential elements of a protection policy. Sample protection policies from CRS and Caritas Internationalis are used as model examples for strengthening or creating a policy. Please note that throughout this guide there are sub-sections in each module that address issues involving vulnerable adults for those partners wishing to include this group in their protection work.

​