CHILDREN

PREVENT CHILD ABUSE - PART 2

CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION AS A QUALITY CARE ISSUE
High quality child care programs put policies and procedures in place to keep children safe. Here are some ways to reduce the risk of child abuse in your program.

- Establish written policies and procedures to protect children. Abuse is less likely to occur if staff knows and follows good child care practice. Be sure all staff members, substitutes, and volunteers know about and follow the policies and procedures established. Display the policies in a location that is convenient for staff and volunteers. Review selected policies during staff meetings. Listed below are some areas where written policies are especially important:

attendance and parental notification

procedures to be followed when parents drop off and pick up children (including policies on who may pick up children)

observation of and daily health checks for children

supervision

guidance and discipline practices, including acceptable forms of touch

procedures to follow if abuse/neglect by parents, staff, or strangers is suspected

- Carefully hire and supervise staff. Check all applicants for employment by talking with past employers. As part of your hiring/screening process, observe prospective caregivers, substitutes, and volunteers working with the children. Develop interview questions that help you assess the applicants' philosophy, beliefs, and approach to discipline, to touch, and to working with parents. Be sure that every caregiver who is responsible for a group of children is within sight of another caregiver, or is regularly supervised.

- Help staff manage stress. Recognize that stress is an occupational hazard for all staff members. Take steps to manage both individual and group stress. Provide regular staff rest periods away from the children. Be sure staff members recognize the need for breaks and take them without feeling guilty. Recognize the signs and take steps to help staff deal with burnout and boredom.

- Provide close supervision. Always follow staff-to-child ratios and group size guidelines. Never leave children unattended. Be sure that unknown adults do not have access to the children.

- Maintain a healthy, safe environment. Be sure the program is clean. Carefully follow safety procedures. Keep rooms as open and visible as possible. Make sure toileting and diapering areas are observable and not far away from the classroom area. Make sure unknown adults cannot get near the children. Place your emphasis on managing the environment, not on managing the children.

- Talk often with parents. Encourage parents to discuss problems. Be open and responsive to parents' questions and concerns. Encourage parents to visit and observe your program. Encourage parents to ask questions if they have concerns about touching or about how the staff is treating their child. Make sure written policies for attendance, transfer of responsibility from parents to caregivers, child observation, supervision, discipline, and touch are explained to parents. Encourage parents to use community resources for personal and family problems.

- Provide staff training, especially related to:

Positive guidance techniques. Tell children what to do rather than what not to do. Be sure staff never uses threats, shame, ridicule, or physical punishment when correcting children's behavior.

Realistic expectations of children. Children need to know what is expected of them. Rules should be clearly stated and consistently enforced. But staff must also be flexible in working with children. Perhaps the rule on not bringing toys from home needs to be relaxed for the frightened new child clinging to her familiar doll. Also be sure the expectations of staff are reasonable, given the age of the children. And be sure that rules are designed to meet children's needs, not the needs of adults.

Promoting positive self-esteem in children. Promoting a positive self-concept among children has long been a goal of early childhood programs. Since we know children with low self-esteem are more vulnerable to abuse, building self-esteem will help children protect themselves.

LEARN TO RECOGNIZE SIGNS OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT
Include a scan for indications of possible abuse in the daily health check. Be sure staff and volunteers have training on physical and behavioral signs of abuse. Young children tend to be accident-prone. Cuts and bruises are therefore quite common. However, certain patterns of bruises, burns, and cuts are more likely to indicate abuse. Look for human bites, handprint bruises, belt marks, hand or rope prints around the child's neck, injury to ears (caused by slapping, pinching, or twisting), symmetrical bruises on the body, (often caused when a child is grabbed or shaken) and cigarette burns, especially on the buttocks and soles of the feet.

Certain behaviors by children may also signal abuse. Abused children often seem watchful, anxious, or wary of being touched. They may be afraid to go into certain parts of the home or center. Children who abuse themselves or other children also deserve attention, as do children who seem unnaturally well-behaved or very compliant to adults.

Abusive caregivers often display certain behaviors as well. Pay special attention to caregivers who single out one or two children for repeated criticism or punishment; use guilt, fear, and threats to control children's behavior; roughly grab or jerk children; or ignore children. Also be alert to caregivers who believe that physical punishment is needed to control behavior or who expect children to meet the caregiver's emotional needs.

CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION: OUR PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Child abuse may still occur even if you follow these recommendations. However, it is less likely to happen if you give careful attention to these details. As child care professionals, we need to protect the children in our care from unsafe practices that put them at risk. We must also protect them from people who are at risk of abusing them. You also have a responsibility to protect yourself and your staff from false accusations. Children have a right to be safe. As a society, we have a responsibility to protect children from harm. Adults must also teach children to protect themselves in ways that do not interfere with normal, healthy, and positive development. As child care professionals, this responsibility falls especially on us.

Reprinted with permission from the National Network for Child Care - NNCC. Donohue, A. (1995). Preventing child abuse, part II. In Todd, C.M. (Ed.), *Child care connections*, 2(2), Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service.

AlbertaRose would like to thank The National Network for Child Care, Journey In Time for Monday's Child Images