Safety on Childcare Projects
Ensuring safety when working with children
A key concern for Projects Abroad is ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of our participants, partners, and host communities.
Our childcare projects require specific precautions because they often involve working with small children.
These precautions are designed to ensure the best interests of the children and the participant(s), as well as the long-term sustainability and worthwhileness of our projects.
Here we will outline our approach, standards, and policies for volunteering and working with children.
A focus on community and family-based care
We believe stable family environments are best for children. That’s why we don’t work in orphanages and instead focus our childcare projects towards community and family-based care.
Rather than volunteering in orphanages, our volunteers will work in placements like daycare centres, kindergartens, and schools, or support groups for the elderly, mothers and their babies.
This helps Projects Abroad build stronger relationships with local communities and – most importantly – help families stay together and flourish.
Read more about our position on orphanage volunteering.
A code of conduct for volunteers working with children
Projects Abroad is committed to protecting children from harm. The best interests of the child are paramount and are the primary consideration in our decision-making. All of our volunteers have to adhere to our Safeguarding Policy which gives clear rules on how volunteers should behave around children.
Our Policies
We follow a few policies to ensure maximum effectiveness and safety for everyone involved with our Childcare Projects.
While any specific policy can change at any time – as we learn from experience or as new best practices emerge in our field – the underlying goal of ensuring safety and worthwhileness remains constant.
Childcare Volunteers must:
- Submit to a background check if they are aged 18 and above.
- Give a professional or academic reference.
- Follow our Safeguarding Policy document which will be covered by a member of staff as part of the induction process.
- Participate in workshops and feedback sessions throughout their project.
- Report any cases or suspected cases of child abuse to Projects Abroad either by speaking directly to a member of our staff or by completing a report form. Alternatively, you can contact a locally registered NGO that specialises in preventing child abuse. You will be informed of of the best organisation to contact during your in-country induction.
- Never take children out of a placement alone or without the advance permission from the placement supervisor and Projects Abroad staff.
Childcare Partner Organisations must:
- Be legally registered to operate in their intended use.
- Sign an agreement with Projects Abroad, which covers many topics such as communication and health & safety.
- Allow Projects Abroad staff to visit the placement regularly for monitoring purposes.
Our childcare project mission and impact
Projects Abroad places each of our childcare volunteers at a placement where there is a real need.
Our mission for our Childcare Projects throughout the world is to provide sustainable educational support, care, and protection to disadvantaged children and vulnerable groups that enhances their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development.
In order to work towards this mission, in each of our destinations we produce a detailed management plan. The management plan is created based on the needs in each destination. Our management plans establish our goals for the year and list our actions for achieving these goals.
Through following these management plans we are then able to evaluate our impact at the end of each year and set new goals for the year to come. You can read more general information about our Impact here.
You can also contact us if you would like to read specific plans.
A longer project is a more worthwhile project
We encourage volunteers on all of our Projects to go for as long as they can. Our advice is: whatever your timeframe, consider stretching it just a little more.
As you spend each week on your project, you become more acclimatised, the children get to know you better, and you get to know them better. As time passes, you learn how things work and have more to contribute.
Some Childcare projects have a minimum duration of four weeks. For each project, the minimum duration is set by our staff in consultation with our local partners with a focus on worthwhileness.
With this said, we do accept volunteers on shorter-term placements where appropriate. Here volunteers require a more structured environment and work increasingly on physical jobs such as repairs and painting. Not all placements have the need or capacity for such work, which is why we treat each on its own merits.
When signing up for even the minimum duration, it’s important to maintain realistic expectations. A volunteer who is there for four weeks will usually not achieve as much as a volunteer who is there for eight weeks. There are cumulative benefits.
Something is better than nothing
However, in general we believe that something is better than nothing. We don’t agree with those who say that service is an “all or nothing” choice: either devote your life to it or do nothing at all.
We are also confident that we can use volunteers of all ages and levels of experience to make a positive contribution to our childcare placements. A big factor in this is the structure of our projects. This can only be achieved because of our unrivaled standards of staff support.