We are proud to announce the successful completion of an initiative commissioned by the Council of the Baltic Sea States in the context of an EU co-financed project to strengthen child protection and child safeguarding in Barnahus. The initiative was implemented in close collaboration with the Barnahus Network, a leading European network dedicated to protecting child victims and witnesses of violence and providing them with rapid access to justice and care.
The Barnahus Network’s overarching vision is a Europe where all children realise their fundamental right to be protected from violence. To achieve this, they work with ministries, government agencies, NGOs, academics and other stakeholders to establish Barnahus or similar approaches that progressively achieve international legal obligations, professional guidance and the Barnahus Quality Standards.
Recognising the inherit risks built into services and interventions for children involved in cases concerning violence, the Barnahus Network sought KCS’s expertise to develop a framework and deliver training for their network to strengthen their child safeguarding policies and practices.
We created a document to provide the necessary knowledge and tools to encourage and facilitate contextual analysis and the development of robust child safeguarding frameworks, policies and standing operational procedures.
Our support focused on the following:
- Providing conceptual clarity: definition of fundamental concepts and the difference between child protection and child safeguarding
- Facilitating the creation of a policy: guidance on how to translate theory into sustainable and actionable policies, adapting to local culture, establishing strong accountability processes and integrating child safeguarding into daily practice
- Giving practical advice: tips for topics such as conducting risk assessments, defining clear roles and responsibilities and activating efficient responding mechanisms
- Sharing essential resources: templates for the Barnahus Network to use when creating a child safeguarding policy or defining a clear implementation plan.
We hope that our collaboration with the Barnahus Network contributes to their goal of standardising good quality child safeguarding and are proud to support this movement for child safeguarding.
Find out more about Keeping Children Safe’s services and resources and how we can support your organisation’s child safeguarding needs here.