Julie Novak, Chief Youth Safety Officer at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, reflects on the need for all youth-serving organizations (YSOs) – large or small - to act strategically and to act now to protect the safety and well-being of the young people they serve.
I have dedicated nearly my entire three decades-long career to working locally and nationally to help eradicate abuse and violence in young people’s lives. It now seems likely that our collective efforts to protect youth within our organizations have made a substantial difference. And so, perhaps not surprisingly, I was profoundly moved to read the results of this ground-breaking, first-of-its-kind research.
My overwhelming experience has been that most people who choose to work or volunteer with young people have their best interests at heart and want to provide nurturing and safe settings where youth can thrive. At the same time, I appreciate that this study raises awareness among professionals, schools, parents and the public that prevention isn’t accomplished without careful planning and execution.
The reality is that none of us can or should do this important work alone.
“Every year, tens of millions of young people participate in YSOs. Our opportunity to impact lives for the better is boundless.”
The big prevention vision for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
Every year, tens of millions of young people participate in YSOs. Big Brothers Big Sisters’ network alone serves 5,000 communities across the U.S. and has 20 million alumni nationwide. Our opportunity to impact lives for the better is boundless across the YSO sector.
Young people are facing an epidemic of loneliness. They need YSOs to continue to provide caring adults in their lives who can help them navigate the complex challenges of today’s world. We know that Big Brothers Big Sisters works. Our outcomes show that youth feel a better sense of belonging because of their Big (adult mentor) and experience a decrease in depressive symptoms. Our programs reduce the risk of young people being harmed in their daily lives. But all of that doesn’t just happen. It starts with our first priority as an institution: youth safety and well-being.
We continuously examine the quality of youth safety programs being provided at the local affiliate level. It is here that safeguarding happens – on the ground, every day, nationwide. We’ve had the great fortune of learning alongside some of the world’s leading experts in violence prevention and child trauma. We have been providing specialist training and support to parents, Bigs, professionals and youth for decades; helping to raise awareness and promote healthy relationship development.
Today, every adult participating in a local one-to-one BBBS mentoring program who has meaningful contact with children and youth is provided education and training materials related to their role in child sexual abuse prevention. This includes professionals, parents, board members, and volunteers. Children and youth are also provided personal safety education and ongoing support. We also provide training that helps caring adults to identify, understand and respond to a young person who may be facing a mental health challenge or suffering the effects of trauma.
In short, we believe deeply in our approach. Our most daunting challenge though, is that ten million youth across the U.S. need the support of a caring adult mentor in their lives. We are working tirelessly to address that gap.
“Successful research-practice partnerships demonstrate the need for even more research."
Why research-practice partnerships matter
At their best, research-practice partnerships illuminate. They provide clarity on what is working and what needs work. They also show the way forward. It is extremely significant that this research-practice partnership has revealed declines in child sexual abuse and boundary violating behaviors among the Big 6 youth organizations in the U.S. And yet, I am left with these questions. What really works in prevention strategy? Which interventions cost administrative time, and have no effect? And what types of interventions actually increase risk?
In other words, successful research-practice partnerships demonstrate the need for even more research! In this specific context, the next step is more granular and program-specific insight. While many youth organizations may have a strong sense of what works best based on their own analysis of reports, as a field we do not have robust, independent research on which individual strategies work to protect youth and which do not across a broad range of programmatic settings.
We have an opportunity to build a compelling case for evidence-based, feasible systems of child safeguarding across youth organizations, large and small. The route to get there is working together, alongside our nation’s best experts, to carefully analyze the relationships between specific prevention programs, incidents of harm, and risk and protective factors.
4 key tips to enhance child safeguarding in youth organizations
- Make use of high quality, validated, budget friendly tools. Collectively the Big 6 YSOs have been studying and working in partnership to understand how to best protect youth for decades. However, often smaller YSOs do not have the same level of funding or access to violence prevention experts as the larger organizations. Today, there are high quality tools and guidelines available (Prevention Global, CDC, US Center for SafeSport, Australia Royal Commission). They are actionable and can be tailored to specific organizational realities.
- Assess your current programming, policy, procedure, monitoring/supervision, quality assurance, and training requirements using these industry guidelines. While it’s critical that your safeguarding system is comprehensive, it must also have the flexibility to recognize when some strategies are unsuccessful, not viable, or harmful.
- Include staff, volunteers, and youth voices in the risk assessment and policy/procedure development process. A successful approach to safeguarding must reflect the day-to-day reality experienced by the people at the heart of your organization.
- Don’t be afraid to talk openly about young people’s exposure to violence and trauma. We can’t possibly prevent what we don’t talk about. Assume that parents care deeply about the safety and well-being of their children. Make them part of the solution. One of BBBS’ primary focuses has been on helping parents understand that their children face considerable risks of sexual abuse and other victimization. And that parents play an extremely important role in protecting their children and youth. This has been one of the most demonstrably successful strategies we have employed at BBBS in safeguarding young people and building protective factors in their daily lives.
Cultural, sporting, and educational organizations have a unique opportunity to help current and future generations of our children thrive. This research from Prevention Global shows that, despite a litany of high profile and devastating abuse cases, youth serving organizations can transform their approach to prevention and safeguarding. In doing so, they are helping to unleash the potential of tens of millions of young people.
Julie Novak
Chief Youth Safety Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
