Part Iii: Child Safety and the Sdm

Big Brothers Big Sisters Service Delivery Model

PART III: CHILD SAFETY AND THE SDM

Throughout the Service Delivery Model, child safety is a prominent feature and one that is enhanced through the SDM. Through a combination of processes and procedures, the SDM addresses child safety in a systematic fashion as discussed below.

1. System-wide Improvements

Uniform Practices: The SDM standardizes national service delivery, both in processes and content. Such standardization can only enhance the overall safety of the children and youth served as we implement effective processes that have been piloted and examined.
Functionalization: The functionalization of roles allows observation of and relationship building with the volunteer by more than a single staff person, allowing for multiple viewpoints of the volunteer.
The AIM System: The AIM database system will allow for more consistency, follow-up, and accountability in supporting volunteers and matches. This will result in fewer instances of customers or situations “falling through the cracks” and more universal quality and safety. This soon-to-be-released national database system will allow identification, through agency input of key data at inquiry, of BBBS volunteers who move from place to place—thus making agencies less dependent upon the self-reports of volunteers regarding prior BBBS experiences. Without a standard service delivery model, such a database would not be possible.
Metrics: The business and SDM metrics allow for uniform review of quality and safety measures.
Testing: An on-going testing of each component of service delivery so that the safest practices, processes and contents are discovered and utilized over the long-term.

2. Volunteer Enrollment

Targeted volunteer interview: A specific volunteer interview where every question is designed to be “value-added” and almost every question can illicit and address key indicators (or red flags) if present. Further, this interview in no way restricts staff from asking follow-up questions where appropriate.
Improved reference checking by phone: Standardized reference questions, done during a personal phone call where more information is likely to be forthcoming than the typical written, “twenty-questions,” multiple-choice forms generally used in the past.
Improved national background checking: A researched national background check organization (Choice Point/Volunteer Select) that provides in-depth information in a homogeneous fashion, and is not cost prohibitive. Moreover, this option allows for identity and residence verification of volunteers.
Targeted home visits: Home visits are targeted to focus on situations that suggest more information is needed to understand the volunteer and the volunteer’s way of life. By targeting home visits, staff resources are best used in a planned way.

3. Match Support

Targeted, individualized match support: A match support system that allows (and encourages) more face-to-face contact between the agency and match; stresses content during contacts; and recommends more frequently-than-required contact where appropriate. Also, through a functional approach, the job of the person in this function can focus on a single priority—supporting appropriate match relationship and child development, rather than having to juggle multiple roles and responsibilities.

Big Brothers Big Sisters will continue to examine and evaluate effective practices as they relate to continually enhancing child safety. This will be done in a manner similar to that used in piloting the Service Delivery Model and will assure that these effective practices are grounded in measurable results that are well documented.

May 2003