2020 Child Safety Trends & Predictions

The holidays are in full swing, and we’ve all begun the count down to the new year, and if you can believe it, a new decade! At KidCheck we’re busy looking at the trends in child safety and how organizations can take advantage of new opportunities, better prepare for challenges, improve effectiveness, and increase child protection.

In 2019 we found many child and youth-focused organizations investing in prevention tools, increasing collaboration with incident response teams, and prioritizing training and education. 2020 will be the year many organizations fully implement what they learned in 2019 and fine-tune the processes around current tools.

Here are our top safety trends and predictions.

Experience Drives Loyalty

Leaders who oversee child and youth-focused organizations know that families rarely compare organizations to the competition; they make connections through their experiences. 2020 will bring in a hyper-focused experience-driven culture both now and in the future.

Families function in a new reality, one that dictates prioritizing child safety 24×7; because of this shift, they are always watching. It’s to your advantage to create a proactive and preventive culture that they can see and experience, this will be a big reason they choose to stay or go in 2020.

Building Trust

Establishing trust tops our list of trends and predictions for the coming year. If anything, 2019 revealed security breaches, safety concerns, leadership scandals, and a myriad of distrust around a lack of volunteer and staff screening for child-centered organizations.

2020 will bring a renewed focus on reestablishing trust both inside and outside the organization. As leaders gain more knowledge on the proliferation of abuse, they’re better prepared to address family questions and concerns and offer real-time solutions that improve child safety.

Align for Credibility

Leaders often think of their teams as only direct reports or the individuals they see daily. Offering a high standard of protection is a big job and difficult for only one person. Aligning with cross-organizational groups to leverage expertise or establish a Child Safeguarding Committee to reach your safety goals is a smart way to leverage resources. Security teams, HR professionals, CPR trainers, first responders, or others with a safety emphasis are great sources of knowledge to tap.

Utilizing people with skills beyond what you have to offer increases credibility and provides families a sense of comfort that you’re serious about establishing safety and you are not trying to do it alone.  

Communication & Collaboration

2020 will usher in a whole new level of required content and frequency of communication with families from staff, volunteers, and leadership, which will contribute to creating a proactive and preventative culture (mentioned above).

Prioritizing a weekly connection through email, social media, and or text for those in your organization and with families is important. Provide updates, changes to policy and guidelines, reviews, potential threats, or safety tips and tricks, which are good information to share and helps keep the priority on improving safety, get everyone on the same page, and allows for better preparation in the event of an incident.

Consistency is Key

Consistency is an essential element of safety! It doesn’t matter if you have families that have been with you a while or new ones you’re welcoming; consistency with process, policy, and guidelines shows watching families that you won’t deviate from your stance on safety no matter what the situation is your facing.

Families like to know processes won’t change because the situation does. An example of this is the check-in and check-out processes. Check-in is the front door to your organization, and if it’s chaotic or doesn’t exist, families more than likely won’t choose to stay. A well-designed check-in and out process provides order, safety, and important trackable data.

By the Numbers

Good data is vital to making improvements, tracking attendance, balancing staff, and demonstrating you’re running the organization well. Nevertheless, the term good data can be subjective. 2020 will usher in need of customizable, digitally stored data that are accessible from anywhere.

We predict leaders will work to increase their understanding of ratios and trends to make informed data decisions. Features such as custom reports, on topics such as statistics, graphical charts, attendance, roster, and health management reports will be top of mind.

Lookout 2020 here we come!

Tools, tactics, and data will be the stars this year. Ask yourself, is my organization poised to take advantage of these new opportunities, and if so how?

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