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Leadership’s Role in Child Abuse Prevention & Awareness

Child and youth professionals must provide a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment for children. You play a critical role in keeping children safe from harm by recognizing and preventing child abuse and neglect in your program. This training highlights the intentional strategies you can use to 1) communicate program policies and procedures, and 2) create an emotionally supportive climate where staff are prepared to report suspected abuse and empowered to speak up when they observe potentially inappropriate behaviors. We review ways you can facilitate a program environment that reduces caregiver stress, where staff feel supported and ready to provide quality education and care. Additionally, we explore ways to provide active opportunities for staff to reflect and practice responding to situations that involve questionable staff behavior, as well as more obvious signs of child abuse and neglect. Throughout this training, we identify VLS tools and resources that program leaders can use to create programs that attend to staff members’ well-being, safeguard children and youth from harm, and support staff in communicating and reporting any questionable behavior they observe in the program.

VLS Lessons & Resources Referenced