Residential care creates many private moments. Your safeguarding plan must cover cabins, bathrooms, changing, night support, transport, off-site trips, electronic contact, and staff living areas.
Use an organization-wide approach rather than relying on “good people.” Commit to Kids provides resources for organizations working to prevent child sexual abuse.1 Your local reporting duties still need separate confirmation.
Set clear boundaries and accessible reporting routes. Participants should know how to raise a concern about a worker, another participant, or a senior leader. A complaint must not have to pass through the person named in it.
Do not use secrecy, humiliation, forced touch, or loyalty tests as camp traditions. Review long-standing games and initiation practices rather than assuming tradition makes them acceptable.
Respond to a disclosure with care. Listen, avoid leading questions, record the person's words, and follow applicable reporting requirements. Do not delay a required report while the camp conducts an internal inquiry.
Protect the reporter from retaliation. Keep necessary information confidential, but do not promise absolute secrecy when protection duties require sharing.
Your task: Ask staff to show exactly how a participant can get help after hours without approaching the person they fear.
Sources for this page
- Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Commit to Kids. Abuse-prevention resources for organizations that serve children. Not a statement of every local reporting law. ↩