View all Best Practices

Select A Best Practice to View:

  • 1. Form a Child Safety Committee
  • 2. Create Opportunities for Community Dialogue
  • 3. Screen Employees and Volunteers
  • 4. Assess your Space
  • 5. Implement Guidelines for Interacting with Youth
  • 6. Train Adults
  • 7. Support Victim-Survivors
  • 8. Develop Protocols for Responding
  • 9. Empower Youth
  • 10. Maintain & Evaluate your Child Safety Program

Create Opportunities for Community Dialogue

כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה

All Jews are responsible for one another. (Babylonian Talmud Shevuot 39a)

Why Create Opportunities for Community Dialogue?

Creating a community where all members are thoughtfully engaged in safeguarding our youth is a long-term, multi-layered process. The work of creating healthy, vibrant communities in which children are protected and nurtured is far more impactful when shared by a broad range of community members. The famous Talmudic maxim “All Jews are responsible for one another” lays the foundation upon which this communal work is built.

Best Practice 2: Creating Opportunities for Community Dialogue is achieved by engaging the entire community in the child safeguarding initiative. While the Child Safety Committee is designed to build a small group that prioritizes and champions this issue, longer-term culture change depends upon shifting policies and behaviors throughout the community. Ongoing dialogue at every level of the community raises awareness of child maltreatment and signals communal responsibility for safeguarding our children.

Completing this Best Practice requires engaging your boards and organizational leadership as well as introducing your broader community to your safeguarding children initiative, so that all stakeholders are informed and invited to participate. Resources are provided to assist you in grounding this dialogue in Jewish tradition and sensitive language while navigating any resistance you may encounter.

Community Dialogue Includes the Following Steps:

  • Goal

    1

    Root your work in Jewish Tradition
  • Goal

    2

    Engage your Board/Leadership
  • Goal

    3

    Introduce your Community to the Initiative

Tools to Guide You in Implementation:

  •  
    Pre-Practice Survey
    Survey
  •  
    Guide: Applying Jewish Sources
    Guide
  •  
    Jewish Text Study : How Children are Valued in Jewish Tradition (Rabbi David Rosen)
    Guide
  •  
    Jewish Text Study: Protecting Children (Rabbi David Ingber)
    Guide
  •  
    Sample: Values Statements
    Sample
  •  
    Sample: Introduction to Prayers
    Sample
  •  
    PowerPoint for Meeting with Board/Leadership
    Sample
  •  
    Sample Email to Key Stakeholders
    Sample
  •  
    FAQ: Debunking Common Myths
    FAQs
  •  
    Incorporate Jewish Resources
    Guide
  •  
    Guide: Advice from a Child Safety Committee Chair
    Guide
  •  
    Worksheet: Community Awareness Plan
    Worksheet
  •  
    Guide: Include Teen Voices on the Committee
    Guide
  •  
    Guide: Framework for Sensitive Programming
    Guide
  •  
    Sample: Email to Send to Community
    Sample
  •  
    Sample: Kavanah/Intention-Setting
    Sample
  •  
    Post-Practice Survey
    Survey

Join the Campaign Today.

By joining the Aleinu campaign you will receive access to our do-it-yourself toolkit containing resources for adopting and implementing best practices to ensure the safety of children in your care. Your YSO will join other organizations all working to implement two or more best practices each year over the next five years.

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