YMCA Board Commitment
Abuse Prevention

Creating and maintaining a culture of safety requires the coordinated efforts of many different operations in an organization: human resources, training, program management, finance, risk management, CEO, COO, and the governing body. It also requires specialized expertise. The YMCA has designated an individual to shoulder this responsibility, remove barriers that might exist in creating a safe environment, and provide necessary training opportunities. In addition, this individual can review, track and analyze incident data in order to improve abuse prevention efforts.

The YMCA of Central Ohio has designated a member of its leadership team as this point person for the organization’s abuse prevention efforts. This individual is responsible for:

a. Responding to any allegation or incident of sexual misconduct, molestation, or abuse;

b. Analyzing incident data on an annual basis and using this information to identify areas of improvement;

c. Coordinating abuse prevention training for the organization;

d. Defining screening procedures for individuals with access to consumers;

e. Ensuring the organization responds to drift from organizational policies and standards; and

f. Communicating the following to the governing body:

1. Potential exposures and/or drift from organizational policies and standards;

2. Pending litigation;

3. Media involvement;

4. High-level incident data and allegations of abuse; and

5. The organization’s abuse risk management efforts.

Training of the board

Governing bodies play a key leadership role keeping an organization safe. But to do this, they must understand how the actions of one person can hurt a consumer for a lifetime and financially ruin an organization, as well as the steps that can be taken to ensure everyone's safety. They also must understand that effective risk management requires a commitment of time, expertise, and financial support. In order to carry this out, Boards must be trained on their role in abuse risk management and child protection. Ongoing training helps keep Board members updated and informed.

Training for board members helps set expectations and will include the following content:

a. Scope and nature of the problem;

b. How abuse affects victims and organizations;

c. Liability and insurance issues;

d. Cost and commitment of the organization’s abuse prevention efforts;

e. System-wide strategies for prevention;

f. Response mechanisms; and

g. Critical steps every board member should take to keep the organization safe.

Abuse Reports and Claims

The organization’s governing body will receive updates yearly about issues related to abuse risk management, such as trends across consumer complaints, incident reports, licensing standards violations, and other changes or issues in programs that may impact risk.

As the governing body helps establish policies, they must receive and respond to risk management organizational data to commit the resources necessary to run safe and effective programs. The scope and type of information provided to the governing body may vary based on consumer populations served, types of program or services offered by the organization, and other performance outcomes or metrics relevant to the organization’s abuse risk management efforts. However, the governing body will generally be provided high-level information on trends that indicate how the organization is actively managing and sustaining safety across programs and the entire organization.

The governing body will receive aggregate data on the types or categories of incidents experienced in a certain time period (i.e., monthly, quarterly, annually) by the organization and across different programs. The governing body may also receive comparative data that references previous time periods and the number and types of incidents that occurred in the past.