Advocating for Child Safety

How does God view children? What are the expectations that God places on us with regards to the treatment of children? Children are gifts from the Lord. God takes our treatment of children very seriously and gives us a mandate in how to care for them. In Matthew 18:5-6 it says

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

How can we and our organizations follow this?

One is to provide the highest standard of moral behavior and relationships in the presence of children. Their emotional and physical vulnerability should never be violated. They are to be lovingly trained within the context of proper parental authority in order to help them develop maturity in their relationship with both God and others.

Then we must provide protection. We‘re doing something close to God‘s heart as we examine how we can better protect the children in our community. Training of staff and living in a community of grace can provide aspects of protection that help our children grow and thrive. Scripture tells us to train up our children in the way they should go. This can be done effectively by modeling our faith before the children in our influence. 

We have created the Child Safeguarding Guidelines that outline what is required for each staff person. The basic child safeguarding course is SIL Initial Creating Healthy Communities which is required for all staff. We know from evidence based research and our own inquiry process that healthy communities can greatly aid in reducing the risk factors for our children. This is a holistic approach to prevention of maltreatment. The goal for SIL children is for them to be safe, nurtured, and to reach their optimal potential for growth and development.  The SIL Initial CS: Creating Healthy Communities is available in Workday or for those not in Workday it is available in Course Connections. PowerPoint presentation (PPT) are available for live training on this website with proper permissions.

Refresher training is given every four years for staff. The Refresher is available on Workday or for those not in Workday in Course Connections. PPT are available for live training on this website with proper permissions.

Staff that work in the Third Culture Kids Care and Education (TC&E) domain are required to do annual training. This course is also available in Workday or for those not in Workday, in Course Connections. The PPT for live training is available on this site with proper permissions. Those working in the TC&E domains have required procedures in the TC&E Staff Screening Guidelines which are: Annual Child Safeguarding Training, Criminal Background Check,  Professional Reference and Child Safeguarding Interview. 

In addition to the required training, SIL has created online training modules for children and youth in personal safety, bullying, and transitions. These courses are created for children 5-7, children 8-10, youth 11-13, and youth 15-17 and are found in Course Connections.