Promote Child Abuse Prevention This April

As more schools are starting to resume in-person instruction, we’d like to highlight the observance of Child Abuse Prevention Month, April 1-30, 2021. It’s a great time to take inventory of your abuse prevention risk management measures and remind your staff about appropriate boundaries with students as the kids return to the classroom. Litigation and damages against public schools due to sexual misconduct robs millions of dollars from instructional budgets.

Keenan has teamed up with the ReLiEF JPAs and the California School Boards Association (CSBA) to promote National Child Abuse Prevention Month and encourage every California public school to participate along with us. Visit our Child Abuse Prevention Month page to learn how you can join with us to promote awareness, access resources being made available to every school, and help make your campuses safer places where kids can learn and thrive. We also continue to have the freely-available informational and training resources of Keenan’s Abuse Prevention Center to assist you.

The boundary rules that protect children – and staff – in the virtual classroom are mostly the same that apply on campus:

• No individual staff member should be alone and isolated with any individual child.
• Staff members should not communicate individually with a student using text, phone or video calls.
• Keep pupils from isolated rooms or other areas that are difficult to observe to avoid student-to-student abuse and possible liability for negligent supervision.

"Sexual misconduct litigation robs millions of dollars from instructional budgets."

It’s also important to reinforce your team’s responsibility as mandated reporters. Be sure your staff is up to date on their mandated reporter training. If you are bringing on any new staff as you reopen campus, ensure they receive their training within the first six weeks of employment as required by state law. Emphasize your school’s safety and abuse awareness culture with the message, “If you see something, hear something, or sense something that tells you a child is being abused, then say something.” Make the contact information for reporting suspected child abuse conspicuous with posters or staff flyers. These measures create a tremendous deterrent to potential molesters and abusers.

All of us have a part in keeping children safe from physical, emotional and sexual abuse. On behalf of ReLiEF and the CSBA, we invite you to work with us together toward the goal of eliminating child abuse in our schools.