The Threshold for Reporting is Concern: Promoting an Ethos of Safeguarding

Perhaps after more than 20 years of working in child protection, I should no longer experience surprise around the frequency of adult sexual misconduct in schools. I know the statistics. Yet even I am taken aback each time I do a case consultation with a school employee who tells me of blatant, and unaddressed, boundary crossing and potential grooming behavior of a colleague. This reaction helps me to understand why sexual misconduct continues to be underreported in our schools. Like most people who work in education, I don’t want to believe that I know someone who grooms students, and I want to give people around me the benefit of the doubt. However, we need to hold each other accountable and avoid prioritizing the reputation of adults in the school ahead of the safety of students. 

Those responsible for safeguarding in their schools often report that they have concerns about a school employee’s behavior, and they don’t feel like their supervisor is responding appropriately to the concerns because the supervisor is “good friends” with the person who is crossing boundaries. A person looking to abuse children doesn’t only groom the child; they groom everyone in the community. Grooming might look like befriending a supervisor, taking on tasks that others don’t want to do, bullying coworkers into silence, and/or eroding professional boundaries to normalize the grooming behavior. When someone who is accused of crossing professional boundaries is “good friends” with their supervisor, that relationship should be considered as possibly being part of the grooming process. 

Schools that foster an ethos of safeguarding encourage reporting of all concerns, regardless of the roles of, and relationships between, the people involved. The term “adult conduct concerns” is used by the International Taskforce on Child Protection to cover any breaches of professional standards or boundary-crossing behavior that doesn’t meet the threshold of harm, but must be addressed to maintain school as a safe space for students and the adults who work with them. You can learn more about adult conduct concerns in this blog.  

To encourage reporting and effective handling of adult conduct concerns, schools should work on: 

• Code of Conduct: Sharing the employee Code of Conduct with everyone via as many channels as possible so that parents, students, staff, and all stakeholders know where the professional boundaries are drawn and what constitutes boundary-crossing behavior. 
• Multiple reporting pathways: Broadcasting multiple pathways for reporting concerns, including to child protection team members and through a school-facilitated anonymous reporting channel, for adults and children to report concerns. 
• Room for disagreement: Creating a safe space in child protection team meetings is essential for hearing multiple perspectives and for members to voice sensitive concerns, like a concern about friendship between a supervisor and staff member possibly influencing that supervisor’s judgment. Respectful disagreement on the team reduces bias, guides the team toward fair actions, and minimizes the chance of missing important information. 
• Staff training: Training all staff about what to report and how to report concerns about adult conduct, and letting them know that all reports will be taken seriously no matter who is involved. 
• Encouraging self-disclosure: Talking with staff about when to self-disclose an act that might be viewed as inappropriate, such as running into a group of students at a bar or providing a child a ride home (at that child’s parent’s request) after a playdate with the employee’s own child. 
• Student curriculum: Educating students about their rights and what they can expect from the adults who work with them, and what constitutes inappropriate conduct and how to report it.
• Parent education: Partnering with parents to safeguard children in all environments, including online, and supporting their children in reporting concerns without fearing backlash. 
• Staff handbook: Publishing a whistleblower or similar policy that protects the reporter from repercussions if the report was made in good faith, and protects the person about whom the report was made if their behavior does not constitute a boundary violation. 
• Student handbook: Publishing a safe haven or similar policy that encourages students to report by protecting them from discipline for any rules they broke related to the harm they experienced. 

Clear professional boundaries are at the core of a strong school safeguarding program, and reporting helps to define and maintain those boundaries. When concerns are aired, they can be addressed quickly, which reinforces the boundaries of appropriate adult conduct. When your community understands that the threshold for reporting is a concern, then before speaking up people won’t ask, “What if I’m wrong?” Instead, they’ll ask, “What if I’m right?”