Safety in Virtual Volunteering

Safety in Virtual Volunteering

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook not only has an entire chapter devoted to discussion safety, but talks about safety measures throughout the book. Risk management should always be a part of the planning and ongoing refinement of any volunteer engagement practice, online or off.

In October 2019, someone wrote to Energize asking: I am specifically looking for information on laws regarding virtual volunteers. If a volunteer living in one state is a virtual volunteer for a nonprofit in another state, which state’s laws protect the volunteer should a legal issue arise. Energize asked Jayne to respond and so she did in this blog.

In addition to those very detailed resources in the book, here are more resources. Most are focused on the USA, but I think a lot of the recommendations are excellent for NGOs in any country.

Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse & Neglect (guidelines), from USA Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Children's Bureau, Child Welfare Information Gateway, Published in 2019.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has two excellent resources on protecting children online:

A Parent's Guide to Internet Safety

Internet Safety Tips for Kids

NetSmartz, an online resource by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to help parents and guardians, educators, law enforcement, teens and kids to learn about how young people can stay safe online.

Online Safety Toolkit  , produced by the British Columbia Rural Women's Network (BCRWN), this free online publication offers advice to women for staying safe while using a variety of online tools, but it is relevant to everyone.

Kidding Around? Be Serious! A Commitment to Safe Service Opportunities for Young People. Free to download. This book discusses “risk relevant characteristics” of adolescents and children – knowledge that was especially helpful for those creating or managing online mentoring programs. If offers a realistic, effective risk management process for dealing with young people, and reviews how to approach different service scenarios involving young participants. If you have young volunteers working together in particular, online or onsite, this book is a MUST read.

Screening Volunteers to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse: A Community Guide for Youth Organizations. Free to download. There are explicit guidelines on interactions between individuals, detailed guidance on monitoring behavior, advice on training staff, volunteers and youth themselves about child sexual abuse prevention, and exactly how to respond to inappropriate behavior, breaches in policy, and allegations and suspicions of child sexual abuse. Not focused on online interactions, but everything is adaptable.

Safe to Compete: An Introduction to Sound Practices for Keeping Children Safer in Youth-Serving Organizations. This document from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, published in 2013, is a framework for youth-serving organizations to guide their development of a sexual abuse prevention program. Again, not focused on online interactions, but everything is adaptable.

The **Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, Risk Retention Group (ANI)****series of free booklets** you can download, each of which explores specific liability issues faced by most nonprofits. Case studies and sample forms are included in each booklet.

Virtual Volunteering Wiki Footer

Detailed information about how to use the Internet to support and involve volunteers - virtual volunteering - can be found in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. This wiki is a supplement to the book - but no substitution for it.

Join our virtual volunteering LinkedIn group (you must be a member of LinkedIn to join this group; membership is free) to know when the Virtual Volunteering Wiki is updated.

If you tweet about The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook please use the tag #vvbook

Please note: this wiki project is entirely unfunded - and I'm struggling to keep it going. If you would like to see this page continue to be updated, support my work

here's how to support this work.

Want to know more about using the Internet to engage and support volunteers? See:

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
by Jayne Cravens and Susan J. Ellis

The most comprehensive guide available on virtual volunteering, including online mentoring, micro-volunteeirng, virtual teams, high-responsibility roles, crowd sourcing to benefit nonprofits and other mission-based organizations, and much more.

Published January 2014, based on more than 30 years of research. Available as both a print book and an ebook.