Want to keep children as safe as possible?
The Problem
You work with children or vulnerable adults because you want to help them.
You also want to keep them as safe as possible, particularly from sexual abuse.
You also recognize you need to protect yourself and your organization in case sexual abuse happens.
So, what do you do?
The Traditional Solution
The Real Problem
Traditionally, the solution was to combine a safe environment to keep children safe with insurance to mitigate the legal liabilities if the safe environment didn’t work.
This traditional solution doesn’t work anymore.
First, according to safety and insurance data, sexual abuse reports have at least doubled in the last few years. A safe environment is no longer enough to keep the vulnerable safe.
Second, the legal liabilities have become so severe (the largest being $485,000,000 to an individual victim of recent abuse) that, even if you could afford it, you cannot buy enough insurance to cover the full potential legal liabilities.
Now what do you do?
The Real Problem
The real problem is that sexual abuse risks have changed, but how we manage them hasn’t.
It’s not just the frequency of sexual abuse or the scale of the legal liabilities that have changed. To manage sexual abuse risk effectively today, you need to:
…make sexual abuse as unlikely as possible, which requires more than a safe environment.
…be willing and able to demonstrate comprehensive child protection at a moment’s notice.
…try to prevent legal liabilities from arising in the first place because you can no longer buy enough insurance to cover them.
…have a plan to deal with the disruption that comes with being associated with sexual abuse.
…be ready to provide compelling evidence that protects reputations and careers from allegations you didn’t care enough to protect those in your care.
…know you are doing everything you can to protect the vulnerable in real-time, to eliminate the shame of realizing after the event that you could have done more to prevent sexual abuse.
…all of which are needed to manage the long-term financial risks beyond legal liabilities that also come with sexual abuse.
The Real Problem Needs Solving Urgently.
The traditional solution misses more sexual abuse risks than it manages.
For individuals, it misses the most important risks. Rising legal, disruption, and reputation risks are making people think twice about helping children and vulnerable adults.
At the same time, rising insurance, legal, and financial costs are impairing organizations’ ability to help children.
The Solution to the Real Problem
Though child sexual abuse is rising, only 5% of youth and vulnerable adult-serving organizations currently use the system recognized as the most effective way to prevent adverse events like sexual abuse.
If you are one of the 95%, the most likely reason you don’t use this system already is that you don’t know the safe environment you’re required to implement isn’t enough to prevent sexual abuse from rising.
You likely also don’t realize that all the most damaging costs of not preventing sexual abuse are rising exponentially, and the safe environment doesn’t protect you at all if you can’t prevent sexual abuse.
The best practice system comprehensively protects children, you, and your organization, but traditionally, it has been complex, slow, and expensive to implement.
The problem we solve is that we make it easy for you to use the best practices system. You will address all the “But how do yous” and establish comprehensive protection – for the children and vulnerable adults in your care, yourself, and your organization.
If you work with children or vulnerable adults, this is what BOKRIM does for you.
You'll be able to tell the ideal sexual abuse protection story.
If you work with children and you’re asked, “How are you protecting my children from sexual abuse?” how do you reply?
If you are one of the 95% that uses the safe environment, you answer by saying you use the same controls that are required of all youth and vulnerable adult serving organizations. If pressed, you may also admit that, although sexual abuse has been rising for at least ten years, you can’t recall that the controls have changed in over twenty years, though the frequency with which you have to prove you use them has risen sharply.
Imagine instead if you could answer with the ideal sexual abuse protection story. It’s the ideal story because it’s the story you and everyone else, parents included, want to hear.
The story has three parts:
One: “We have explored every aspect of our organization and identified where and how the minors and vulnerable adults in our care could potentially be at risk of being sexually abused.”
Two: “We have chosen a set of controls that address every identified vulnerability and established systems to verify that the controls are and remain effective.”
Three: “Can you look at the vulnerabilities we’ve identified and tell us if you think we’ve missed any? And can you look at our controls to see if we can improve them?”
To tell the story confidently, you must protect children and vulnerable adults from sexual abuse comprehensively. When you do that, you also protect yourself and your organization from all the costs and consequences of not being able to prevent sexual abuse – because no prevention is foolproof.
We enable you to tell the story credibly and convincingly.
You can't tell the ideal story now.
Unless you supplement the safe environment, you can’t tell the ideal story because, for example, the safe environment:
…far from helping you identify potential sexual abuse vulnerabilities, is based on a checkbox approach which is the opposite of what’s required for effective prevention.
…is composed of just three core controls despite their well-known deficiencies.
…is not systematic.
…includes no stakeholder involvement.
…is years out of date.
…and so on…
Is the safe environment really that bad?
The safe environment is incomplete
3/50
Safe Environment Controls/
Other Prevention Controls
Safe environment prevention is incomplete.
When the safe environment was first introduced in 2002, it was deliberately kept simple so that it could be used by any organization and implemented quickly. That was an understandable initial response to the then-emerging abuse crisis.
However, it makes no sense that the safe environment hasn’t been upgraded to prevent sexual from rising, given we know so much more about sexual abuse and risk management.
The safe environment is out of date
2002
The safe environment hasn’t changed in over 20 years.
The safe environment framework is out-of-date.
As a risk management framework, the safe environment is a check-box design; “do these things, and children will be protected.”
The simplicity of the check-box approach comes at the high cost of ignoring elements acknowledged as critical for effective risk management, like customization, a systematic process, and continuous improvement.
Not using risk management best practices was somewhat understandable in 2002, but no one can afford not to use best practices today, given how fast sexual abuse risk is rising.
For example, in July 2023, a New Mexico jury awarded an individual victim of recent sexual abuse $485,000,000.
2002
The safe environment hasn’t changed in over 20 years.
The safe environment ignores the most important requirement of successful risk management.
You can’t manage a risk until you engage with it.
The safe environment ignores the most important requirement of successful risk management.
If you think back to the last big decision you faced, you’ll see you naturally understand and use risk management best practices.
Let’s assume there was a lot at stake with the decision and an ideal outcome but uncertainty about how or even whether you would achieve it.
As a result, you thought carefully through the pros and cons of each possible decision, the different possible outcomes, and what you could do to make it as likely as possible that you’d achieve the outcome you were hoping for.
In other words, you engaged with the risks of your decision because you can’t manage a risk until you engage with it.
The safe environment contains none of the elements required to enable engagement with sexual abuse risk. On the contrary, its check-box approach enables many to do what most of us would rather do, which is not to think about sexual abuse at all.
Best practice sexual abuse risk management is urgently needed.
Sexual abuse is rising fast.
In the last ten years, sexual abuse of children by adults has doubled. Sexual abuse by children of other children has increased five times.
All the costs and consequences are rising, some exponentially.
The only way to reduce the cost to a victim is to prevent sexual abuse altogether or at least identify it as early as possible. That hasn’t and won’t ever change.
Disruption costs: Twenty years ago, there was minimal disruption from sexual abuse. Lawyers huddled to negotiate a confidential settlement few people knew anything about. Today, a criminal investigation will probably be followed by civil litigation that could last seven years between them. In that time, organizational activities and personal lives can be turned upside down.
Reputation costs: Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) were commonplace twenty years ago but are unlikely today. Organizational reputations and careers are ruined when an organization is alleged not to have done enough to protect children.
Legal costs: Plaintiffs’ attorneys have had twenty years to develop theories of liability that ensure adherence to the safe environment is no protection from the consequences of not being able to prevent sexual abuse.
Financial costs: Ignoring the impact on revenues and costs when an organization is associated with sexual abuse, the New Mexico jury award shows how the legal liability implications are now extreme. This last cost is the only one insurance addresses, and there is nothing like sufficient insurance capacity to cover awards on this scale.
None of these tangible costs contemplate the cost of the shame people feel when, with the benefit of hindsight, they realize how much more they could have done to protect the children in their care.
You currently have no protection if you cannot prevent sexual abuse.
Even adding outstanding insurance to your “safe environment,” you’ll only cover 10% of your organization’s sexual abuse risks.
You currently have no protection if you cannot prevent sexual abuse.
The safe environment was designed to protect children. It doesn’t protect you and hardly protects your organization, even if you faithfully apply it.
Insurance helps but only so much. It only addresses maybe 10% of the potential consequences.
Even adding outstanding insurance to your “safe environment,” you’ll only cover 10% of your organization’s sexual abuse risks.
It's time to bring sexual abuse risk management up to date.
Risk management best practices are the only way to implement effective child protection.
Because risk management best practices enable you to demonstrate you are conscientious about protecting children, they also protect you and your organization from the worst consequences if you cannot prevent sexual abuse.
Comprehensive
The basic safe environment includes just three core controls. As a result, unless it’s supplemented, the core safe environment involves a less detailed recruitment process, less training, and fewer policies and procedures for people working with children than is typically required for a job flipping burgers.
Risk management best practices offer a range of controls that address all the ways minors and vulnerable adults can be at risk of sexual abuse. They also provide the people and organizations trying to keep children safe with comprehensive control and process choices that protect them in case they cannot prevent sexual abuse.
Systematic
A basic safe environment has no systematic elements. None. Effective management (of anything) is impossible without a systematic approach.
Risk management best practice is systematic. You understand your risks, select objectives, choose and implement controls, and ensure you stay on target.
Adaptable
Risks, organizations, and best practices change constantly. A system that doesn’t adapt breaks down quickly.
Failure to adapt is why we are where we are.
Risk management best practices enable organizations to recognize when change is necessary and adapt smoothly.
Practical
Youth and vulnerable adult-serving organizations haven’t traditionally been able to use risk management best practices – an approach known as enterprise risk management (ERM) – because of the time, money, and expertise required to implement and maintain ERM.
We have created BRM – for Body of Knowledge (BOK) Risk Management.© BRM enables any organization to use risk management best practices because it slashes the time and cost and makes it easy to implement and maintain them.
BRM also ensures the best practices keep getting better.
Any organization can use BRM.
Welcome to BRM
The core elements of BRM are our online application and the SAM Risk BOK.
The BRM Sexual Abuse Risk Management Application
Our application guides you step-by-step through the three-stage cycle of risk management best practices. Instead of months or even years to implement risk management best practices, you’ll do it in days.
The Three Stages of BRM
A sexual abuse risk assessment ensures you understand all the sexual abuse vulnerabilities and risks that result from your organization's nature.
When you understand your vulnerabilities and risks, you can customize a risk management system of controls and processes that keeps children and your organization as safe from sexual abuse and its consequences as possible.
Managing your risk means performing the processes that ensure controls remain effective, synchronized with your organization and its risks, and continuously improving, so you keep them all at best practice levels over the long term.
The SAM Risk BOK
A body of knowledge (BOK) is an as complete as possible and constantly updated set of concepts, terms, and activities that make up a professional domain, like sexual abuse risk management.
We continuously analyze sexual abuse risk management performance across our platform and update the SAM (for sexual abuse and misconduct) Risk BOK with everything we know and learn as we learn it.
Access to the SAM Risk BOK means you’ll always know what the current best practices are, so you’ll always be able to make well-informed sexual abuse risk management decisions and continuously improve your child protection.
We guide you every step of the way.
We have helped hundreds of organizations to develop their sexual abuse risk management system.
We start by providing coaching in the fundamentals of risk management best practices, sexual abuse risk management, and then on each stage of the BRM process.
We provide workbooks to guide you and your team through the risk assessment and system customization stages of the BRM process.
We can also directly facilitate either or both of the assessment and customization.
We provide the tools to manage your system, respond to and record incidents, and manage change after you have customized your initial system.
You can work through the entire process in less than a day, though we recommend you take longer to explore as many perspectives as possible. An hour or so a day over between a week and a month is ideal to fully engage with your sexual abuse risk and new system.
We can help and answer questions via email, phone, and Zoom throughout the process.
By the end of the process, instead of worrying if you are doing enough to protect children, vulnerable adults, yourself, and your organization, you will be:
Confident
Confident you are protecting the children and vulnerable adults in your care as well as possible.
Certain
Certain you are protecting yourself and your organization as comprehensively as possible.
Convincing
Convincing when you ask others to trust that you are using the best practices to protect children.
You help us ensure the best practices keep getting better.
Our objective is to reduce sexual abuse as much as possible. To achieve this, sexual abuse prevention must keep improving.
That’s why we are structured as a platform. A platform means you identify your risks and customize your protection, balancing what you want and are able to use to address them.
As a result, across the platform, there is a mix of traditional, best, and new practices.
We measure how well all the practices perform, which enables us to constantly refine what the best practices are.
A virtuous cycle.
By working with us, you are contributing to constantly improving child protection.
In a nutshell...
Using BRM, your child protection will be comprehensive.
Your commitment to child safety will be evident.
You will manage 100% instead of 10% of your and your organization’s sexual abuse risks.
Depending on your circumstances and current insurance costs, BRM often costs less than a safe environment.
You will implement risk management best practices in days, not months or years.
It takes little or no more time to manage sexual abuse risk systematically than it takes you now, once you’ve set up your system.
You will contribute to improving child sexual abuse protection for every child.
Any youth or vulnerable adult-serving organization can use BRM.
If any of these thoughts sound familiar, BOKRIM is for you.
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Our Free Guide to Developing a Sexual Abuse Risk-Aware Culture
A sexual abuse risk-aware culture is the core of an effective child and vulnerable adult protection system.
In our free guide, you’ll see how to develop and maintain a sexual abuse risk-ware culture.
