Child Safety and Safeguarding Policy

AI COMP: Scaling AI Media Literacy Resources that Enhance Societal Resilience through Critical Competencies

Introduction

AI COMP: Scaling AI Media Literacy Resources that Enhance Societal Resilience through Critical Competencies, also referred as AI COMP, is a two year project by Tactical Tech, Save the Children Italy and Savoir Devenir that aims to strengthen critical AI literacy for youth. "Supercharged Human?" is a product of the AI COMP project.

This document outlines general guidelines for child safeguarding over the course of the project.

All three consortium partners have in place child safety and safeguarding policies and procedures that guide each respective organisations' work with children with clear measures to prevent child harm and abuse and to enable report and response if any harm or abuse occurs. The following policy seeks to establish a common ground among the three organizations to what concerns ensuring child safeguarding through the course of the AI COMP project and serves as reference for decision making. AI COMP Child Safety Guidelines does not replace in any shape or form the consortium partners' child safety policy and procedures but rather seeks to complement them to what concerns the implementation of the project.

Scope

The purpose of this policy is to protect children from any harm that may be caused due to their coming into contact with the AI COMP project activities. This includes harm arising from the conduct of staff or personnel associated with AI COMP project and the design and implementation of the project's content and activities.

The Child Safety and Safeguarding Policy applies to all individuals and organizations involved in the project and who will carry out activities involving persons below the age of 18 years old. This includes, but it is not limited to, project managers, coordinators, directors, consultants, interns, educators, volunteers and participants of activities of the consortium partners as well as from organizations, collectives or institutions with which the consortium partners establish an agreement to carry on activities with children.

In order to create an environment where children are valued, listened and respected, consortium partners will ensure all staff, volunteers and partner organizations know and follow their child safeguarding policies, procedures and behaviour codes confidently and competently.

Glossary

Child: any individual below the age of 18 years old.

Abuse: any acts that directly or indirectly may result in physical and psychological harm of a child damaging their prospect of a safe and healthy development. This includes physical, emotional, sexual violence and harms resulting from neglect and exploitation.

Neglect: repeated failure to meet a child's basic physical and psychological needs.

Exploitation: any acts that uses the child for personal, commercial and institutional exploitation and benefit.

Safeguarding: refers to the protection of children from abuse between peers or between participants and personnel responsible for carrying on activities; practices and policies to prevent abuse.

Child Safeguarding Point of Contact

The representative of each consortium partner in the Operations Committee is also the main contact point for all matters related to child safeguarding in the project.

The point of contact has the following main responsibilities:

ensure that this Child Safety Policy and Code of Conduct are communicated within their organization and that the activities organized or coordinated by their organization within the framework of this project are aligned with the principles defined in this policy;
inform the project consortium of any reporting or claim of infringement of the code of conduct within any activities carried out in the framework of AI COMP project;
advise the project consortium whenever necessary in matters related to child safety and protection.

Safe Conduct and Behaviour Guidelines

The consortium partners will seek to keep children safe by:

Fostering environments where children are valued, listened and respected, understanding that children and young people are individuals with individual needs;
Respecting differences in gender, sexual orientation, culture, race, ethnicity, disability and religious belief systems, and appreciate that all participants bring something valuable and different to the group/organisation;
Ensuring all language and materials used are age-appropriate, inclusive, and respectful of individual dignity;
Ensuring contact with children and young people is appropriate and relevant to the work of the project they are involved in. Communication should be done only through official channels. One-on-one interactions with children, as well as unnecessary physical contact, should be avoided;
Building a safeguarding culture where staff and volunteers, children, young people and their families treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing concerns;
Ensuring a due diligence process when working with partners, informing them about the child safeguarding policy, as well as committing to our code of conduct;
Recording, storing and using information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance;
Working in partnership with children, young people, their parents, carers and other relevant institutions as an essential way in promoting young people's welfare;
Ensuring all project trainings and activities include modules informing of expected behaviour and appropriate conduct as well as ways to mitigate risk and report any breach to this policy;
Making sure all individuals in the project working with children sign a Code of Conduct to work with Children provided by the consortium partner;
Not collecting and sharing personal data (including photos, videos, names, or contact details) without prior explicit consent from legal guardians. In the absence of such consent, identifiable features of the child (such as faces) must be anonymised using appropriate techniques (e.g. blurring) in any communication materials involving children (e.g. posters, videos, brochures, etc).

Reporting and Responding

Any concern or suspicion of inappropriate behavior or child abuse should be reported to the organization hosting the activity and be handled by the policy and procedures of the hosting organization. If the incident or suspicion occurred in an activity hosted by an organization that partnered with one of the consortium partners, the organization in question should inform the consortium partner. Any reported incident or claim made with a partner or an associated partner to the project should be communicated to the Project Operations Committee.

The project Operations Committee must discuss, document and register any claims or reports of breach of the AI COMP Child Safeguarding policy and inform the project Steering Committee. After assessment, the Steering Committee should assess if further and complementary measures should be taken.

Code of Conduct to Work with Children

AI COMP project through its consortium partners Tactical Tech, Save the Children and Savoir Devenir are committed to protecting at all times our employees, volunteers, interns, participants or any other person associated with the delivery of our work from any form of abuse or neglect. AI COMP project has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of bullying, harassment, abuse and exploitation or predator behavior.

Abuse can take a variety of different forms, including:

sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and neglect
online abuse
financial abuse
discriminatory abuse
organisational abuse

Our work is based on mutual respect for values and beliefs. We understand that partners will have their own practices and policies with regard to child safety and safeguarding, and we hope that this code of conduct complements that.

We ask everyone who is involved in our work with direct interaction with children and young people to agree to and sign this code of conduct.

Responsibility

In working with AI COMP project, you are responsible for:

prioritising the welfare of children and young people
providing a safe environment for children and young people
having a good awareness of issues to do with safeguarding and child protection and taking action when appropriate
carefully reading the safeguarding policy and procedure
staying within the law at all times
modelling good behaviour for children and young people to follow
challenging all unacceptable behaviour and reporting, where appropriate, any breaches of the behaviour code to your AI COMP project contact point or to the Tactical Tech project lead at youth@tacticaltech.org
reporting all concerns about abusive behaviour, including behaviour being displayed by an adult or child and directed at anybody of any age

In working with AI COMP project, we ask that you:

treat children and young people fairly and without prejudice or discrimination
understand that children and young people are individuals with individual needs
respect differences in gender, sexual orientation, culture, race, ethnicity, disability and religious belief systems, and appreciate that all participants bring something valuable and different to the group/organisation
challenge discrimination and prejudice
encourage young people to speak out about attitudes or behaviour that makes them uncomfortable
promote relationships that are based on openness, honesty, trust and respect
ensure your contact with children and young people is done through official channels, is appropriate and relevant to the work of the project you are involved in
value and take children and young people's contributions seriously, actively involving them in planning activities wherever possible
respect a young person's right to personal privacy, following digital privacy policies or not sharing details or images online of any young person or child without permission from their guardian
if you need to break confidentiality in order to follow safeguarding procedures, it is important to explain this to the child or young person at the earliest opportunity

You should always follow this code of behaviour. If you become aware of any breaches of this code, you must report them to your contact for AI COMP project or to Tactical Tech as AI COMP project coordinator at youth@tacticaltech.org.