Thursday, September 30, 2010

TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING


David training the adults and bible school students on child protection issues yesterday.

Over the last few months, Dave has been working on the current Child Protection Policy Training schedule.  

He had conducted several work-shop style discussions with the house parents about child protection earlier and, with their help, he presented the first session yesterday to all staff, missionaries, bible school students and children.  

The house parents did a great job acting out various scenarios and role playing to clearly highlight some of the “tougher” topics.   And Jess emailed me to say, “Dave did a great job with training everyone. He had us laughing and learning! Everyone was so engaged and actively participating!"
  
Having a child protection policy is one thing but having a policy that everyone is aware about and actively following is another.  The latter can only be achieved with regular reminders/training and deliberate planning.

You can imagine that many of our children have already been through more than their fare share of hurts, so this practical training offers guidance on the promotion of child welfare and the development of safe practices when working with children. 

It also empowers the children to recognise when they are in an unsafe situation and what they can do about that.  Everyone was also made aware as to what steps they can take if inappropriate behaviour is ever suspected, witnessed or disclosed.

ZOE has an excellent reputation as a children’s home with their parent to child ratios, safety and rehabilitation.  (Many of the children's homes that we have had association with have 2 adults for every 50 children or so).  We do not know of another children's home in Thailand that has a adult to child ratio as low as ZOE.  

To keep this reputation intact and quality of care high, we know that these issues MUST be talked about openly and often so that safety and protection are continually on everyone’s minds.

David concludes his training with all the ZOE staff tomorrow.

Good job Dave!

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