This weekend we were present at the workshop "SAFE FROM HARM" which began the day explaining the objective of proposing and establishing aspects together with the other National Scout Organizations that make up the Interamerican Region.

SAFE From HARM is called a commitment to build and maintain a safe environment for young people who are part of Scouting, which focuses primarily on youth to create positive and healthy interpersonal relationships, it seeks to keep Scouts safe from any kind of harm and also including all the adults at any time throughout their lives in Scouting.

To ensure that Safe from Harm Policy is implemented in the best way, those responsible work together to protect children and young people in order to be responsibly involved in security measures so that they obtain the necessary tools to react appropriately to any adverse situation to them. The implementation of Safe from Harm objectives or measures must be carried out in different areas such as Youth Programme, Adults in Scouting, organizational structure and national events for youth and adults. Also, each NSO has to ensure the proper functioning of all systems and measures both locally and nationally in order to be able to provide greater well-being for the proper development and safety of all young people and adults.

NSOs shared their documents and activities in order to inspire other NSOs to incorporate some aspect that they find important or relevant to improve their engagement with young people and adults. Safe From Harm is a tool that will generate a positive impact on organizations and the whole community will feel protected and with greater capacities to face imminent risks.

It will be given a brief explanation on how to include Safe from Harm in the Youth Programme. Youth Programme in the Scout Movement is defined as the totality of learning opportunities from which young people can benefit in order to achieve the purpose of the Scout Movement. Safe From Harm's priority is to generate completely safe environments, as well as safe activities and relationships that can be performed in these environments. Create and maintain positive and healthy interpersonal relationships that allow achieving educational goals through the Scout Method.

It mainly seeks to value what is available and with it look for alternatives so that the actions are attractive, safe and suitable for young people being so that this policy can venture to position the Scout Movement as a responsible organization that promotes safety for adults, young people and children through digital media and tools that make the experience rewarding and enriching for the community.

Risk is the likelihood that a threat will present itself in any type of situation within Scout activities. At the institutional level, strategies, systems and procedures should be taken into account to help foster the relationships of young people with their parents, youth and adults, adults and parents to prevent situations that threaten physical, emotional, psychological and cyber security, it should also take into account the security of the place and equipment used in educational processes as well as the promotion of a healthy lifestyle. Adults must accomplish the life cycle in a function role which consists of:

• Recruitment. It is divided into four processes: Determination of needs, Search and Selection, Mutual Commitment and Appointment.
• Performance. It contains five processes: Training (basic / continuous), Induction, task and function Development, Task support and finally Evaluation.
• Decisions for the future. It has the processes of: Renewal, Development of tasks and functions, Relocation and Retirement.

It is important to highlight that updating adults is a basis for a better understanding of the changes of young people so that there is a better reception of information between adults and young people. It is needed to be always open to the changes in the processes so as not to have an unnecessary change in the organization that can disorient the team.

A strategic partner is a company or organization that targets the same market as us. In order for this partner to be identified in a correct way, a mapping of strategic partnerships is required to meet the identified needs. The partnership must be built on a mutually beneficial relationship, therefore the identified needs must bring value to both the organizations and the partners to ensure proper alignment.

It cannot be considered as partners entities that do not share the values and vision of the Scout Movement, if these entities are related to the production and sale of weapons, or if they produce products that can be harmful to health and which are the subject of public controversies that might be considered a significant risk for the regulation and image of the Scout Movement.

Regarding communication by any type of media – print / digital- it is necessary to take into account how this policy of Safe from Harm will be communicated so that adults, young people and children know the content of it. Mainly it should be noted what kind of media would be suitable for each group so that in the end the purpose of this topic is known. Campaigns are one of the most recommended options to use because most members are in recurring contact with the website and therefore it is more comfortable to interact with the information since being didactic and containing hyperlinks generates an attraction to have the big picture.

The crisis with regard to this topic may result in a deterioration of the image. The image can be affected when what we want to report does not always turn out as expected and that information can go viral but not in the expected way which can cause a rupture of the natural order of things and thus generate a rejection towards the organization.

The implementation plan is the base for being able to have control of what is going to perform, in the first instance it should be made a diagnostic analysis of the starting point, one must understand thoroughly the documents created, it must observe the actions that have been carried out previously with their respective results, and finally, to investigate whether they have been carried out collaborations in the field so as to have the central idea of the plan. In the second instance the objectives must be delimited to know what is aspired to achieve, this is linked to the implementation of goals with a defined time and resources according to the organization.

As a third instance once the objective is clear and defined, actions must be defined that will help generate an inter-area team that can maintain an adequate level of diversity and that can manage what happens within the NSO. Actions should be concrete and preferably measurable through indicators of success. The fourth instance involves evaluation, which forms an important part of the actions to move forward without complications. That is why the constant review of the plan is necessary since it will allow the detection of the most common problems so that it does not interfere with the deadline to fulfill the task.

In the fifth instance, what has been carried out to date should be disclosed and shared, all in order to have a better idea of the products created and thus be able to make adjustments so that they can achieve a higher level of acceptance by the community to which the actions were directed. And in the sixth instance we have the last stage where the publication of the materials and the celebration of the achievements is carried out, without forgetting to congratulate the teams that made possible the realization of the actions since this generates a sense of motivation to continue working on Creating a Better World.

In conclusion, this learning workshop gave a better perspective of what Safe from Harm means and how different NSOs can get better feedback on the activities they are expected to do. Some points that need to be reviewed a little more thoroughly are: The implementation of actions, providing of information, be constantly updated to have an adequate response to each change that occurs in the way of communicating with both young people and adults and improve the concept that each of the NSOs has so that it is easy to understand and thus provide a better experience with the whole community.

The learning workshop was attended by 144 participants from 25 NSOs. It was facilitated by the team of consultants of the Safe from Harm services of the Interamerican Scout Region, supported by the staff of the World Scout Bureau -Interamerica Support Centre.

Written by Camila Rivas.