Child Safe Environment

Our Commitment: A Child Safe Environment

Champaign Family YMCA is committed to keeping children safe in our community. This means educating ourselves and our community about child abuse and how we can work together to prevent it. 

Information About Child Abuse

Child abuser can be pa rents, caretakers, friends, neighbors or anyone who comes in to contact with your child. They can even be other youth. Everyone has a responsibility and plays a role in preventing abuse. Below are the four types of child abuse that are recognized by most states:

1. Emotional: Threatening a child or using words that can hurt a child's feelings and self-esteem; withholding love and support from a child
2. Physical: Causing injuries to a child on purpose, such as bruises, burns, scars or broken bones
3. Sexual: Having sexual contact in any form with a child, inluding exposing, fondling, intercourse, pornography or internet solicitation.
4. Neglect: Not providing children with enough food, clothing, shelter, medical care, hygiene or supervision

Child abuse can happen from an adult to a child, or from one child to another (peer to peer abuse).

Child Safe Policy

Our Staff

Champaign Family YMCA has more than 150 staff members and volunteers working with youth in the many programs we offer.

Our Screening

To keep children in our programs safe and provide multiple layers of protection, we screen our employees and volunteers through a comprehensive interview process, reference checks and criminal background record checks and fingerprinting.

Our Training 

Employees and volunteers complete an extensive child abuse prevention training program to make sure they understand the problem of abuse and know the warning signs to look for. Supervisors and managers complete additional training to further promote a child-safe environment. All staff members and volunteers are mandated to report any suspected child abuse.

Our Policies