Tailor Made Courses

Child Protection - For misean cara

Duration:  2 days

To increase understanding of the problem of child abuse and enable misean cara member organisations to strengthen, develop and implement protection measures in order to keep children safe

Objectives

• To increase knowledge and understanding of child abuse and what is required to keep children safe
• To enable child protection in misean cara member organisations to be placed in a context of current national child protection policies and best practice
• To develop a common sense of purpose amongst participants on strategies and approaches to ensure high quality and consistent implementation of child protection measures throughout misean cara members
• To review current protection measures within misean cara members and consider what other child protection measures may be necessary;
• To consider the challenges of building safe environments for children with particular reference to the religious context, working internationally, and issues of gender
• To support integration of CP into all areas of misean cara’s work and carry out practical planning for this. 

Course content

• Reflect on the nature of childhood and perspectives on children
• Consider what we mean by ‘safeguarding children’ and ‘child protection’ and why these are important
• Examine protection risks and issues for children we are in contact with
• Agree common understandings of what is harmful to children
• Consider the dynamics of sexual offending against children
• Review organisational, national and international frameworks for keeping children safe
• Assess the current safeguarding measures in place and develop practical plans for strengthening or developing child protection measures
• Clarify what action to take when faced with a child protection concern

Expected Outcomes: By the end of the course participants should be able to:

• Understand more about the problem of child abuse and their role in protecting children
• Better promote the safety and protection of children the organisation is in contact with
• Identify specific risks and issues within the organisation and mitigate these
• Support implementation of practical measures within their organisation designed to keep children safe
• Recognise and respond to actual or potential child protection issues and incidents

Bio of Facilitator

Paul is a qualified social worker with nearly 30 years experience of work with children as practitioner, manager and policy advisor. He has been global child protection advisor for a number of large International NGOs including Save the Children UK and Plan International, and is currently the Safeguarding Children Advisor for CAFOD. Paul co-founded the Keeping Children Safe Coalition which developed training and resource pack to support agencies in building child protection measures in their organisations and was Chair from 2004-2009.  Since 2008 when Paul founded GCPS, a consultancy and training service, he has provided input on child protection to a wide range of organisations, including CAFOD, SOS Kinderdorf International, Tearfund, Concern Worldwide, Save the Children Alliance, SCIAF, British Council, World Vision UK, and Oxfam.

Other Contributor:

Grace Kelly: Grace is a registered psychologist and worked with the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children as Director of services for 17 years. She has recently written misean cara's Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy and has done some training on the implementation of this policy for staff of misean cara.

Who should attend:

Congregation Leaders and misean cara Liaison Officers.

Pre-requisite (if there is any)

A willingness and ability to change ways of working