Child safety is everybody's business

What kind of incidents can I report here?

Here, you can report child safeguarding incidents (e.g. physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, breach of privacy) as outlined in our Child Protection Policy and related policy support document on reporting and responding in member associations in this system. You will be asked to categorise the incident in the reporting form.

If you would you like to report a concern about corruption, please use this link.

For general feedback or complaints (e.g. programme quality, fundraising) please use this Feedback and Complaints Form.
[http://tinyurl.com/SOS-feedback-and-complaints]

Please note that you should address general Human Resources (HR) issues (e.g. discrimination or health & safety) to your supervisor, to his or her superior, the HR department or to another person in a position to receive such reports.

Why should I report a child safety concern or incident?

You should report a child safety concern or incident because your report will help to protect children and young people supported by programmes of SOS Children's Villages and avoid further harm.

Therefore, if you become aware of a child safety concern or incident, you should submit a report here or use one of the other reporting channels outlined in the question below. Please note that, generally, SOS co-workers have a duty to report according to our internal guidelines.

Which other reporting channels can I use to report a child safeguarding incident?

If you are an SOS co-worker we encourage you to consider the following reporting options (for details please see our policy support document “Child safety is everybody's business. Child safeguarding reporting and responding procedures in member associations”):

• inform the child safeguarding team in the respective programme;
• if it is not possible to contact any member of the child safeguarding team in the programme, please report your concerns directly to the national child safeguarding focal person;
• if it is not possible to contact the national child safeguarding focal person, the report should be forwarded to any other member of the national child safeguarding team including the ND as the chairperson of the national child safeguarding team;
• if due to any reason this is also not possible, the report should be shared with the child safeguarding focal person in the regional office.

If you are not an SOS co-worker (e.g. a business partner) we encourage you to consider approaching your SOS-internal contact person, if available.

What is the process for submitting a report? How do I set up and access a postbox?

To submit a report, start by clicking the "Submit report" button located on the top left side of this page. We encourage you to disclose your name as this facilitates a more efficient review and follow-up. If you wish, you can also report anonymously. All reports follow the same process.

The reporting process includes 4 steps:

1. First, kindly read the Security Advice, grant permission for the collection, processing and use of personal data in accordance with the provided information about data protection, and respond to the Security Question.
2. On the following page, please categorise the incident.
3. In the next step, please describe the incident in a text box and select from a list of pre-defined responses. You can also upload a file of up to 10 MB. After submitting your report, you will receive a reference number as confirmation.
4. Finally, you can set up your personal secure postbox by selecting your own username and password. This postbox will be used to communicate with us and to receive information about the review and the outcome of the reported incident. Therefore, we encourage you to set up your postbox and check it regularly. Of course, you can choose to remain anonymous during our communication.

If you have already set up a postbox, you can access it directly via the “Login” button on this page.

How can I remain anonymous?

To remain anonymous, it is important that you do not submit any personal information, e.g. your name or your position title. Please rest assured that you can complete your report without providing any personal information.

Please note, that files may contain hidden personal data. Therefore, make sure to remove such data before uploading a document.

If you use a shared or company computer, we recommend you delete the browsing history (click here for an instruction for the most common browsers) after completing your report and each time after accessing your personal postbox. Thereafter you should also close your browser.