By Dr. Ted Baehr
Book: PROTECTING OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN
Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +3
Author: Tom Rawlings and Debbie Ausburn
Publisher: Hatherleigh Press, 2024
The goal of MOVIEGUIDE® is redeeming the values of the mass media of entertainment for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. Of course, there are many other areas of life that need to be redeemed for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.
One of them is youth serving organizations or YSOs. In recent years, many well-known YSOs have found themselves in trouble for incidents of abusing children one way or another, including conservative denominations, camps, schools, and many other types of youth organizations. Therefore, we are extremely grateful for Tom Rawlings and Debbie Ausburn writing PROTECTING OTHER PEOPLE’S CHIDREN.
As the late great preacher Tim Keller says, “PROTECTING OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN provides clear step-by-step instructions for creating child protection policies.”
Why is this necessary?
Often, youth servicing organizations don’t realize the need for clear policies to help them deal with staff and others to protect children. Often the organizations are overwhelmed and don’t think they have the time. However, if they’re in youth servicing ministry, education or childcare, they need to think again. For example, from the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention to USA gymnastics, many organization have found themselves in trouble that they didn’t need.
Tom and Debbie point out in their book that just borrowing someone else’s polices may not work for your organization. Also, protecting the organization should not be a priority. The news media often exposes organizations who tried to protect themselves and therefore found themselves in a legally indefensible position. Also, the problem sometimes isn’t just adults, sometimes it’s other children.
In their book, Debbie and Tom help youth organizations understand the differences between principles, policies and procedures. They wisely advise organizations to know and understand the government licensing and regulatory standards. Also, your principles, practices and guidelines need to be written down. Debbie and Tom’s book provides worksheets and guidelines into hiring and very clear and practical tools to help you protect children.
Since children are the future and many diverse Christian organizations deal with children, Debbie and Tom’s book is recommended as must reading for creating a strong child safety program.
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