Youth Organizations Editing and Proofreading Services

Sixty-one pages of safeguarding policy sit on the organization's website, written for inspectors, funders, and insurers. A fifteen-year-old at the Tuesday session has never seen them and could not use them if she had. She would need to know what an adult at this club will never do, what to do when something feels wrong, who to tell, and what happens after she tells someone. The policy covering all of that has been approved, has been read by every adult in the building, and has never been explained to the young people it exists to protect.

The documents we edit for Youth Organizations

Safeguarding and child protection policies come to us alongside the young-person-facing versions of the same policies. Codes of conduct for staff and volunteers, behavior and participation agreements made with young people, and consent and permission forms for parents and guardians follow. Activity and trip information and its accompanying risk documentation reach us often. Recruitment and induction material for youth workers and volunteers arrives with training material on boundaries and disclosure. We also edit youth voice and participation structures, session plans and program material, funding applications and reports, complaints and concerns procedures, and the policy covering staff contact with young people on social media. Our editors treat the young person's version as a version rather than a summary.

What the editing involves

The young-person-facing document answers different questions from the adult policy, and shorter words alone will not produce it. It should say what adults here will never do, in terms specific enough to be checked. "No leader will message you privately" and "no leader will drive you home alone" give a fourteen-year-old a standard to measure against rather than an instinct. It should say what to do when something feels wrong, including that she does not have to be sure first. It should name more than one person to tell, by name and by role, because the obvious person may be the one she needs to report.

The adult policy usually says that a leader who is told something may have to pass it on and cannot promise to keep it secret. The young person's version often leaves that out, and a young person who discovers it afterward loses trust in the whole arrangement. A line such as "I will have to tell someone whose job it is to help keep you safe, and I will tell you when I do it" belongs in the young person's version in those words. What follows belongs there too: who will be told, roughly how long it takes, and what happens if she is not believed. We read the young person's version against the adult policy line by line, and we flag every point where the shorter document promises something the longer one does not.

Confidentiality and the limits of our role

Everything you send us is treated in confidence, including safeguarding records and material about identifiable young people. We are editors, not safeguarding officers, attorneys, or youth work professionals, and we offer no opinion on any policy, concern, or case. What we can do is produce the version the young people can actually read.