Safeguarding the Future

MATT HARRIS tells us why he’s on a mission to get schools across the Asia region and beyond to ensure they have the highest child safeguarding standards in place.

What is ChildSafeguarding.com?

In essence, it’s an online child protection training platform for school support staff, such as cleaners, bus drivers and security guards. The content is universally accessible through its bespoke platform and instructional design, and available in 16 languages, including all four Singaporean languages.

Why did you launch the platform?

I saw a need for thorough child protection policies, training and practices while working in my last school role – Deputy Head of the British School of Jakarta. During my time working in Indonesia, two teachers, unassociated with the school I worked for, were sent to prison on child abuse charges. This incident, plus another high-profile case in the same country, prompted a large-scale international task force to address child protection in schools, specifically international schools.

Schools typically have child protection protocols in place, but training for support staff was lacking and, at times, completely overlooked. When I returned to Singapore, the idea came to use e-learning to create a tool to train all adults in the school community as to how to protect students.

What else is in place?

There are other companies doing online child protection training, but their content is designed for teachers and leaders, who are a homogenous group – well-educated, experienced and English-speaking. Governments around the world, including Singapore, have been re-writing their child protection policies to be more strict and more supportive of training elements.

Singapore’s Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and the child protection laws it upholds are some of the best across Southeast Asia. However, they still struggle to fully train all staff, typically because of challenges around culture, education and language. Our system addresses all of those issues, and we are continually adding more languages.

How does it work?

Schools or vendors such as bus companies or caterers pay for the course for their staff, which gives them greater risk protection, as well as alignment to accreditation standards, local laws, parental expectations and “the right thing to do”. These learners are given training in a critical area in their mother tongue language using a platform we built that meets their educational needs, along with certification (valid for two years) they can use to build their CVs.

The course itself takes 60 to 90 minutes; we have filmed it in 16 languages here in Singapore, making it hugely accessible. Our course is sold in packages, but the average price is US$15 per learner, which is carried by the school or vendor.

How well has it been received?

So far, we have clients in 15 countries. In Singapore, this includes Singapore American School, UWCSEA, Tanglin Trust School, Chatsworth, Middleton, GEMS, SJI International, and more. We’ve also just signed up the Conrad Hotel for its staycation team that works with kids.

Outside of Singapore, we have clients in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Taiwan, Mumbai and Cambodia, and we’re looking further afield to Africa and the Middle East.

What’s your ultimate aim?

We want to make every school a safe place for students, as it should be. We want every adult who a child interacts with to know what to look for and how to behave. We are starting with international schools because they are geographically, culturally and linguistically diverse, but we plan to make this available in every country worldwide, in every language we can.

We want to ensure our learners understand they are part of a team of adults responsible for protecting children. “All adults at your school are responsible for child protection. This includes you”, is a key line from the course. In essence, we aim to be empowering (not punitive), inclusive and supportive.

For more information, go to ChildSafeguarding.com, or email Matt at info@childsafeguarding.com.

We want to make every school a safe place for students – as it should be!