Child Protection Policy Introduction
At CAJ, we realize we are living in a broken world, but we desire for our community to be a place where students and families feel welcomed, safe, and protected. It is important that we have effective structures in place to remind us of our roles and responsibilities. Especially in a community where different cultures might have different interpretations of what nurture and discipline might look like, we need to clearly define what we expect from our CAJ community in order to keep our students safe.
We have three guiding principles that form the foundation of our child protection and safety policies: visibility, accountability, and appropriate use and balance of power.
Visibility
We need to be sure that nothing is hidden, that we are conducting ourselves in the open when dealing with children.
Accountability
We allow others to know what we are doing and avoid secrecy.
Appropriate use and balance of power
We use our power with great care when dealing with children, attentive to position, body language, ratio of adults to children, and many other factors.
We hold all adults in our community accountable to these principles when they are on campus or dealing with our students. Teaching staff, support staff, coaches, volunteers, and even parents on campus need to treat all students with respect and consideration.
Students and staff members know that every member of our community carries a responsibility to look out for others. If anyone suspects that a student is being hurt by another person, or if a student is harming themselves in some way, no one can be silent. Teachers, principals, or counselors will listen and protect, and we will do our best to help a student who is in need.
These are not easy topics to talk about, but when we keep our community informed about what the possible issues are and how we are seeking to address them, our community has the potential to meet the needs of each child who is a part of us. Our desire is that through the nurture and care they receive while at CAJ, they will be equipped to be instruments of healing in the midst of a deeply wounded world.
