Exploring Safeguarding Measures for Children and Young People in Asia

Posted 06 May 2022 in EMpower News   |   Share

EMpower is committed to safeguarding children and young people who participate in the programmes we support: to prevent abuse and violence and to enable them to respond to potential incidences with strong measures and frameworks.

Continuing our learning journey with our grantee partners in East and Southeast Asia, we have created an online Safeguarding Library, which is full of resources, including: articles, reports, and materials linked to each of our webinars. We hope these resources and tools will inspire and help guide our partners in exploring topics such as the importance of international and local laws in protecting children and young people. 

Last month, we held the third in a series of webinars for our partners to share best practices. The webinar focused on how organisations can conduct strong risk assessments to strengthen their existing safeguarding frameworks. The risks these organisations and the young people they serve face include (but are not limited to) data with young people’s private information not being properly secured, and staff at these organisations not recognising the signs of abuse among young people in their programmes. And if not prepared, the staff run the risk of re-traumatising young people when they do disclose to staff that they have been abused. 

Sixteen staff members from 9 of our grantee partners in Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam participated and learned: 

• To recognise the importance of a strong risk assessment
• To identify and categorise safeguarding risks that are specific to their organisations’ contexts using a state-of-the-art tool
• To conduct a risk assessment within their own organisations

After the webinar, we received some encouraging feedback. “The event was amazing as always, can't wait to be in other EMpower webinars and learn together,” said one participant.

And another noted: “Thank you very much for this session. It deepens my understanding about the importance of risk assessment.” 

Based on our partners’ strong appetite for further discussion on mitigating risks and protecting children and young people, we will continue to create opportunities for them to learn together in the near future.