A Guide to Developing Child-Centered Policies for CSOs

CSOs are living and learning structures. The countless relationships and interactions established with employees, volunteers, members, donors, and target groups require the organization to constantly operate on the axis of change, transformation, and learning. All these processes of change and transformation bring with them the need and necessity to create agreed-upon principles and behavioral grounds within the organization. This is because changing circumstances and relationships require us to clarify, in which situations, with whom, based on which principles, values, and standards, we will act. 

At this stage, policy documents serve as tools that define and regulate the grounds for consensus and prepare organizations for unexpected situations.

So, what are policy documents for?

• Protects values: Policy documents provide a basis for principled consensus, have a transformative pedagogical function, and protect values.
• Builds trust: They demonstrate to your target audience that you are an ethical and responsible institution.
• Enables transformation: They clarify the human rights violations within the area of responsibility of the organization and define the framework for making the organization safe by providing mechanisms for solution and remedy.
• Ensures consistency: No matter what your field of activity is, it ensures you maintain a responsible, consistent, and standard stance for every point of impact you have on people, living beings, and nature.
• Prepares you: By defining violations and mechanisms, they ensure that organizations are ready for possible crises and unexpected situations.

We don't work with children—should we still prepare a child rights policy?

Let’s answer immediately: yes.

This is because the child rights responsibility of organizations is not limited only to projects in direct contact with children. Every one of our activities—from representation in communication efforts to ethical processes in supply chains, from the safety of physical spaces to human resources policies—can potentially have a positive or negative impact on children.

To manage these potential impacts and prevent violations of child rights, policy documents carry strategic importance. When needs are not visible, it's vital to plan ahead for potential risks and to develop institution-specific monitoring and evaluation tools. For this, you can use methods suited to your organization, such as feedback mechanisms, self-evaluation processes, or anonymous surveys. In this way, it becomes possible not only to react after violations occur but also to create policies that recognize risks in advance, continuously learn, and are strengthened through collective intelligence. Our goal is to develop policies that are not limited to reactions post-violation, but those shaped with collective intelligence that account for risks.

So how will we do this?

Stage 1: Identifying Needs

The effectiveness of policy documents depends on them being based on the right needs. Determining the areas of need guides us in our areas of intervention. For this reason, it's important first to spend time discussing areas of need and identifying their sources. Determining needs may require different tools depending on the topic. For instance, for sensitive topics, surveys may be necessary; for areas where shared experience is intense, experience-sharing meetings or self-assessment may function well. In the context of child rights, it's also essential to discuss points of encounter and risk areas. Also, if people in the organization are unfamiliar with child rights concepts, it's important first to share concepts and principles such as child safety, child participation, protection, neglect, abuse, and the principle of do no harm, and then discuss the risks in light of these concepts. 

Basic Concepts of a Child-Centered Approach 

Even if we don't work directly with children, there are two concepts—at two levels—we need to know well as we shape our policies: Child protection and child safeguarding. Looking at their areas of responsibility:

• Child protection refers to actions of intervention and response to existing cases of abuse, neglect, or violence,
• Child safeguarding means the proactive, internal regulatory steps taken to prevent harm to children. (It applies, even when there is no direct contact.) 

While child safeguarding refers to our responsibilities in areas where there may be contact with children even if we do not work directly with them, child protection provides the framework for how we respond in situations where children are exposed to violations. Child protection is a responsibility area that we must definitely observe when working with children, while child safeguarding includes elements we must observe even if we don't work with children or in the field of child rights. Above all, both adhere to the principle of do no harm. 

Needs Analysis: Identifying Points of Contact

Systematically analyzing all areas where your organization may directly or indirectly come into contact with children makes it possible to foresee risks in these areas and develop appropriate policies and procedures. In this context, points of contact and the risks that may emerge there can be classified as follows:

• Direct work: Project activities, trainings, events, and fieldwork are where the most direct contact with children occurs. Key risks here include communication and behavior of staff with children and the safety of event venues.
• Staff/volunteer interaction: Contacts staff or volunteers have with children outside of work, indirect interactions within the organization, or employees’ own children being present in organizational spaces. These situations can lead to boundary violations and the risk of inappropriate behavior.
• Communication and content production: The organization’s website, social media posts, reports, images, and language used constitute this field. Main risks here include violation of privacy and the use of hurtful language that represents children as victims.
• Corporate/environmental impact: When the organization's field covers topics with broad community impact like environment, health, or social policy, the work conducted may indirectly affect children’s living conditions. This is important for indirect rights violations that may occur unknowingly.
• Procurement and partnerships: Suppliers, subcontractors, or collaborating institutions employing child labor or engaging in unethical practices can indirectly involve the organization in these acts. For this reason, the supply chain and partnerships constitute a critical risk area.

Stage 2: Participatory Process

The preparation process must be collective for the policy document to serve as a basis for consensus. So, where to start? The first step is to trust in collective intelligence and standardize the process. For this; 

Process Standards and Participation (Trust in Collective Intelligence)

• You can form an inclusive working group and include representatives from non-child-related units (Communication, HR, Finance) and management in the focus group that will draft the policy document.
• Provide transparent information so that everyone in the organization (employee, volunteer, member) knows why, for what purpose, and with whom the policy has been created.
• By keeping channels for input open, set up official channels (meetings, emails, surveys, etc.) for collecting input, suggestions, and needs from across the organization, and observe gender equality during this process.
• For consensus on concepts, create internal common definitions for the core concepts underpinning the policy—such as "Child," “Child Safeguarding”, “Level of Participation,” and “Violation.”

Stage 3: Definitions and Principles

Policy documents also articulate NGOs’ political stances. How the policy document addresses and defines key concepts expresses its ideological position on that topic. The section on definitions and principles serves both to clarify the organization's stance to third parties and as a clarifying and informative function for the organization itself.

In these sections, as we define the situations, facts, and concepts we want to transform, need clarification on, or will respond to in the case of violations, we also establish the principled framework that will guide our behavior.

Stage 4: Policy and Actions

In the policy document, this section contains concrete rules related to identified contact points and risks involving children.

Staff Management and Codes of Conduct

• Recruitment assurance: Regardless of whether they directly work with children, all prospective staff and volunteers for relevant positions should undergo strict background checks (criminal record, reference check).
• Codes of conduct: For all staff, clarify boundaries in relationships with children (physical contact, social media friendships, giving personal gifts).
• Restriction of authority: Staff who do not work directly with children should not be left alone with children during activities involving children.

Focusing on Areas of Indirect Contact with Children 

These policies prioritize the protection and safety of children even if there is no direct work with children.

Venue safety and preparation

• Physical spaces: Assuming that the organization's offices, meeting rooms, or event venues may be accessed by children (employees’/participants’ children), inspect the physical safety of the location (emergency exits, access to toxic substances or sharp objects, visibility of adult materials) and adopt risk-reducing measures.
• Duty of care: Take into account the care responsibilities of parents/participants attending organization events. If needed, provide safe childcare/play areas (with a designated supervisor) to support child participation. 

Use of language and visuals in digital media

• Child-centered language: In all digital channels, reports, and communication materials, use language that does not label or discriminate against children, and is rights-based.
• Visual usage principles: Never use images of children in ways that evoke victimhood, helplessness, or abuse. Prefer visuals that depict children as active, strong, and rights-holding individuals.
• Written consent: Before using a child’s image or personal story (voice, video), obtain written, informed consent from their legal guardian and the child (in an age-appropriate manner).

Procurement and Supply Chain Ethics

• Child labor ban: Add the child labor ban and adherence to other core ethical standards as binding terms in contracts with suppliers and partners.
• Duty of care: When it comes to travel or accommodation, budget in a way that observes the duty of care and child safety.
• Procurement: Ensure parties in contracts pledge to uphold child rights, stipulating contract termination as a consequence of violations of these commitments. 

Child Participation Policies

Child participation should be designed differently for situations in which the organization works directly or indirectly with children. If the organization conducts workshops or programs targeted at children, aspects such as content planning, feedback, and venue selection become important principles. In situations where there is no direct work with children, keep in mind that consultation processes with children are not always necessary or recommended, and that participation should fundamentally connect to issues that affect children directly. 

• Diversifying participation mechanisms: Beyond consulting children's opinions, you can enable their active participation in decision-making, planning, and monitoring through age-appropriate methods (games, artistic activities, children’s councils). 
• Valuing opinions: Enable children’s opinions to be heard in the development of policies, programs, and projects. At the same time, when children offer feedback and contributions, don’t forget to inform them about how their input has been evaluated.

Stage 5: Mechanisms (Remedy, Restoration and Learning)

Policies can only be actualized through well-functioning mechanisms. These mechanisms should go beyond punitive measures, first ensuring the restoration of those affected and then the transformation of the organization. At the same time, try not to limit mechanisms to post-violation situations, but to design preventive and intervention-focused mechanisms as well.

Preventive Mechanisms

• Before violations occur, the organization should define possible actions it can take by improving its processes and strengthening its teams. 
• Regular feedback, risk analysis, and internal training can serve preventive functions.

Notification and Response Mechanism

• Accessible channels: Establish reporting channels that are easily usable by children—child-appropriate language, visuals—ensuring confidentiality (Safeguarding Officer, email, external hotline).
• Quick response: Clearly define timeframes for receipt, assessment, and referral of notifications to relevant official authorities (where legally mandatory).

Restorative and Transformative Process

• Restoration-focused: Provide necessary psychosocial support, legal guidance, and other measures to ensure the well-being and restoration of the person subjected to a violation.
• Independence and impartiality: Set up a structure to ensure independence and impartiality in investigative processes (e.g., an ethics board independent from management).
• Organizational learning: Treat every violation that occurs as a learning process revealing the organization's vulnerabilities; discuss and document new preventive actions to avoid recurrence.

Stage 6: Living Documents

This stage prevents the policy document from gathering dust in the archives and ensures the organization remains a continuously learning structure.

Internal Integration

• Training and orientation: The document should be a compulsory part of orientation for all staff (including new hires), and regular refresher training should be provided.
• Process integration: Policy items must be integrated into HR manuals, volunteer agreements, and all project budgets.

Updating and Monitoring

• Periodic review: The document should be reviewed at least annually or after any significant institutional change, legal regulation, or major incident.
• Control questions: The following questions should be asked in the review process:

1. Is there a current experience or debate (for example, AI ethics, new social media platforms) where our existing policies fall short?
2. What have we learned from the implementation of our policies? Which articles failed to meet day-to-day needs?
3. What feedback from children and stakeholders indicates that some articles need to be revised?

Let us remember that preparing a child-centered policy document is not merely completing a procedure on paper. It is also about taking steps to build a culture that brings child rights to life in all our processes and remembering our responsibility to make this happen. We hope that this small guide will accompany you in these steps.

With the wish for a more equal and just world where child rights are respected.