The Safety and Wellbeing of Young People is Our Number One Priority
We work every day to create a safe, inclusive and fun environment so kids can have every opportunity to be successful in life. We have no tolerance for inappropriate behavior of any kind, including child sexual abuse or misconduct, and we put resources behind that stance.

Culture of Safety: Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula continually updates robust safety policies, programs and training for staff and volunteers to promote child safety and protect young people from threats in our society. These resources include but are not limited to:

• Annual mandated reporter training
• Annual sexual harassment prevention training

Safety Policies: Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula maintains comprehensive safety policies that protect youth, including but not limited to policies on supervision, transportation, communication and prohibition of one-on-one contact.

24-hour Toll-free Child Safety Hotline: We encourage all staff, members and families to report any incident or situation they feel is unsafe. Through our national partnership with Praesidium, one of the nation’s leading safety experts, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula members and staff have access to a confidential 24-hour toll-free Child Safety Hotline at 866-607-SAFE (7233) or SafeClub@Praesidiuminc.com.

Mandatory Background Checks: Mandatory criminal background checks are required upon hire and annually for every staff and board member at Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. In addition, criminal background checks are required for any volunteer who has direct, repetitive contact with children. All potential employees and volunteers are run through DOJ Live Scan.

Required Immediate Reporting: Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula staff and volunteers are all mandated reporters and are required to report any critical incident/safety concern to local authorities immediately. We are also required to report any critical incident to Boys & Girls Clubs of America within 24 hours.

Mandatory Annual Safety Assessments: We employ a multi-tiered safety assessment approach to ensure we continually make improvements to safety at our Clubs.

Safety Trainings: Ongoing training and supervision of staff are critical. We participate in a wide variety of child safety training through online courses, CPR training, and ongoing partnership with the local police departments. We also engage leading third-party safety experts to provide guidance for our policies and approaches, including Praesidium, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the National Children’s Advocacy Center.

Safety Committee: Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula has a dedicated Board-led Safety Committee to provide input and guidance on local policies and safety strategies. For a list of priorities and initiatives, please see the BGCP Safety Committee Charter below.

Mandatory Employee Reference: Any employee interested in moving to another Boys & Girls Club is required to have a reference from their previous Club, even if the Clubs are within the same community.

State and Local Laws: We comply with federal, state and local safety laws, including those impacting facilities and vehicles.

Safety Partnerships: Nationally, Boys & Girls Clubs of America works with leading experts in the areas of safety, security and technology to develop state-of-the-art solutions for Clubs. Partners include:

• National Child Safety Advisory Task Force, made up of leading experts and organizations
  
• Blue Ribbon Taskforce, composed of local Club leaders who provide input on safety direction and key safety initiatives
  
• Mental Health First Aid, a national program that teaches skills to recognize and respond to signs of mental illness and substance abuse
  
• Crisis Text Line, a confidential text message service for youth in times of crisis
  

Locally, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula partners with:

• East Palo Alto Police Department, Redwood City Police Department, and San Mateo Police Department
  
• Menlo Park Fire Department and Redwood City Fire Department
  
• InHome CPR
  

Continued Commitment: In July 2020, Boys & Girls Club organizations voted to adopt additional safety measures to further improve safety within our Clubs. Though many of these practices were already commonplace across our Movement, this vote made them mandatory for all Clubs. These include more stringent reference and background checks, enhanced Safety Committee requirements, stronger communication of key safety resources and information, and more. With unprecedented majority, on July 26, 2021, local Boys & Girls Clubs voted in record number to adopt additional membership requirements that further enhance child safety, implementing recommendations from RAINN that began in 2020 and will continue over the next two years - a demonstration of our continued commitment to keeping kids safe.

Nationally, Boys & Girls Clubs of America has advocated for passage of the U.S. PROTECT Act to improve background screening systems and access. The national organization has also partnered with the FBI, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Centers for Disease Control to support the development of safety practices that benefit ALL youth-serving organizations.

America’s young people deserve nothing less than our constant focus on their safety and our firm commitment to protect every child who is entrusted to our care at Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. To learn more about our national safety policies and actions, please visit Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Child Safety page.

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula also conducts Safety Assessments for the overall organization, and for the sites.

The core function of BGCP's board-led safety committee is to provide necessary leadership to ensure the reasonable protection of the youth, employees, volunteers, and visitors who utilize Club facilities and participate in Club activities. The committee’s role is to serve as the one entity that connects many separate organizational functions that affect the quality of safety, including human resources, supervision, training, emergency management, policies, programming, and other safety related issues.

The Safety Committee is required by the BGCA to commit to the following annually:

• Meet at least (3) times a year.
• Implement solutions to ensure the safety of all members, employees, volunteers, and visitors.
• Verify the organization’s submission of the annual online safety assessments.
• Review the organization’s safety assessments to identify areas for improvement.
• Review the organization’s safety policies. Examples include: (1) Video surveillance (2) Data collection, storage, and transfer (3) Technology acceptable use (4) Field Trips (5) Emotional Support / Mental Health (6) Code of Conduct (7) Social Media (8) Internet safety (9) Prescription medication (10) Bullying prevention (11) Disability inclusion

Additional Safety Committee responsibilities:

• Examine liability, risks, and exposure that threaten the safety of youth, families, staff, and volunteers at BGCP and school partner facilities.
• Ensure BGCP is compliant with all applicable federal, state and local laws at all of our sites.
• Review emergency operations plans, incident response protocols and crisis communications plans and direct staff to revise as needed. Safety Committee Skills: (1) Facility management (2) Child advocacy and/or abuse prevention (3) Legal and policy (4) Mental health or health care (5) Emergency management and preparedness (6) Industrial Safety (7) Building security and surveillance (8) Insurance or risk management (9) Health & food safety (10) Transportation (11) Human resources