Revamping Two New Volunteer Programs for Youth Services
A new volunteer program supporting Pregnant Girls Services (“PGS”) Hostel Programs was launched to help young girls facing crisis pregnancy build their self-esteem through physical, recreational, educational and vocational activities. The recruitment and onboarding process for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (“CSE”) volunteers were trained to align with the new Volunteer Engagement standard procedures which adheres to our child protection framework. Volunteers were qualified as CSE Workshop Educators and CSE Teaching Assistants to support CSE programs.
Receiving International Recognition of Mother’s Choice Child Protection Standards by Achieving “Keeping Children Safe” Level One Certification
In 2019-2020, Mother’s Choice launched our Child Protection Code of Conduct to over 800 staff and volunteers, introducing the highest standards of how to prevent, respond to, and report child protection concerns. Alongside the signing of the Code of Conduct, all staff, and volunteers with access to children or client data completed “Introduction to Child Protection” through bilingual online training on Mother’s Choice own eLearning platform. Learners are trained to understand, identify, respond to, and report child abuse.
In addition, Mother’s Choice sought out an external audit of our policies and procedures from Keeping Children Safe, an international child protection network. Keeping Children Safe conducted a full review of our Child Protection Framework, interviewed staff, produced an audit report to outline our child protection standards, and certified us as achieving Level One certification. Mother’s Choice is the first Hong Kong organization to achieve this recognition.
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*Community Education
The mission of our Community Education team is to educate and mobilize our community to become agents for change in practices and policies around issues that affect vulnerable children, youth, and families. Through social research and impact measurement, we holistically review topics including child protection and comprehensive sexuality education, to innovating programs and solutions to complex issues.
- For more details on workshops for youth, parents and teachers, and the curriculum, visit: https://www.motherschoice.org/en/what-we-do/for-youth/book-a-sexuality-education-workshop/
Our child protection team trains our internal team of staff, volunteers, and Project Bridge families in child protection, based on our Mother’s Choice Child Protection policy framework.
- To learn more at Mother’s Choice Child Protection website.
- Check out Mother’s Choice videos on child protection:
- Mother’s Choice Child Protection Code of Conduct booklet.
- HK Committee on Children’s Rights website.
Our impact measurement team works with all Services across Mother’s Choice to ensure quality data is collected, and trends are reviewed and analyzed. We actively contribute to Government consultations regarding vulnerable children and work alongside peer agencies to build collaborative partnerships.
*Volunteer Engagement
Did you know that 80% of our Mother’s Choice workforce is made up of volunteers who come from all corners of Hong Kong with many different skills, talents, and experience! As the first step in this volunteer journey, we invite you to an Info Session so that you can get to know us better! We are often looking for skilled and passionate professionals with a heart to serve in the various capacities. Check out our website for more.