Programme for school communities
Every school able to prevent, detect and respond
La Confianza en tu Sala (Trust in Your Classroom) works with the whole school over a sustained process: leadership, teachers, support staff, families and students. By the end, the school has a rehearsed protocol, people prepared to receive a disclosure and designated staff with time to act.
Why we work with schools
Almost every school has a protocol. It has rarely been rehearsed, and often nobody with real time available knows what to do in the first minutes after a child or adolescent tells them something. The response then comes late, the child is made to repeat their account, or the legal deadline to report is missed.
Child sexual abuse happens mostly within the circle of trust, and many people take years to tell anyone. During that time there were adults around whom the child or adolescent did not see as a safe person to turn to. The programme works so that the school has such adults.
Who it includes
Abuse happens within a network of adult relationships around children and adolescents. That is why the programme works with four groups at once.
The school as an organisation
A safeguarding policy approved by the school’s governing body, an active protocol, a code of conduct, a confidential reporting channel and a designated person with allocated hours.
Everyone who works at the school
Leadership, teachers and support staff, as well as those on the gate, in the playground, in the canteen and on school transport.
Families and carers
Which signs to look out for, how to talk about the subject at home and whom to tell, according to their children’s age.
Students
Prevention modules for each stage of schooling, once the school’s adults are prepared to receive what students tell them.
How it works
Each school’s level is agreed with our team after an initial assessment.
Baseline protection
Staff learn to recognise signs, receive a disclosure and activate the referral pathway. Families receive information. The school carries out a self-assessment and receives feedback on its gaps.
Deepening
Teachers from the school are trained to train their colleagues. Families receive tools to talk with their children and respond to a disclosure. The leadership team receives advice according to the gaps identified.
Full system
Safeguarding is led by designated staff with time and budget, with in-house trainers, families involved and prevention modules for students at each stage.
What sets the programme apart
- Every training session ends with a practical assessment. Participants rehearse what to do when faced with a specific account; an attendance list is not enough.
- Every activity leaves a record. Reports, minutes and certificates that the school can show when asked.
- Protecting children is the responsibility of adults. The programme does not shift it onto children and adolescents.
- It does not promise what it cannot deliver. No school programme has shown on its own that it reduces child sexual abuse. What the school gains is trained staff, tested pathways and clear responsibilities.
- It follows recognised standards. It draws on the World Health Organization’s INSPIRE framework, international child safeguarding standards for organisations and Chile’s Law 21,809, which requires schools to manage school life preventively.
Some of the programme’s activities
Red que Cuida workshop
For everyone who works at the school. Four hours in person to rehearse the first response to a disclosure: receiving, containing and referring, with case simulations.
Module for parents’ meetings
Two hours in person on signs, talking at home and whom to tell. It includes a short questionnaire and feedback of the results to the school.
Advice on the protocol
A review of how the protocol worked in practice, with proposed adjustments, together with the leadership team.
Prevention with students
A preventive sexuality education curriculum for each stage, delivered by the school’s own teachers. It covers sexualised behaviour between students of similar ages.
Frequently asked questions
Will families and students raise more concerns or disclosures?
Probably, and it is a sign that the school has become a safe place to turn to. That is why we prepare the leadership beforehand, with a communication plan and with the person responsible for school life available during those weeks.
Why do students not take part from the first level?
Teaching children to recognise and talk about abuse when the adults are not prepared to receive what they say leaves the child or adolescent without a response. Those who have to respond are prepared first.
Does it replace our protocol?
No. It reviews the protocol, rehearses it with those who have to apply it and helps sustain it over time.
Prevention team
Let’s talk about your school
Write to us to find out about the initial assessment and the proposal for your school community. We work in Spanish.
Translation by Fundación Para la Confianza. In case of any difference, the Spanish version prevails. Spanish version.