Our Commitment to Child Safety

Save the Children is deeply committed to conducting its programs in a manner that is safe for the children we serve and to helping protect the children with whom Save the Children and our sponsors are in contact. As a humanitarian agency, we believe that all children have the right to live free of the fear or reality of any form of abuse or exploitation, and we are obliged to create and maintain an environment that aims to prevent these circumstances and promotes the implementation of our child safety policy. We are confident that our sponsors will join us in upholding this policy so that, together, we can do our best to ensure that the children we help remain safe. While the vast majority of individuals have good intentions, we must safeguard against the few who do not. We are sure you understand the need to protect the wellbeing of the children we help.

Visits

While visits to our field offices are encouraged, in keeping with our commitment to child safety, all visits to sponsorship areas must be coordinated with Donor Services representatives at our headquarters at least 60 days in advance. Unannounced visits are not acceptable. Please note that the option to “meet” a sponsored child is only available to individual (one-to-one) child sponsors. Prior to visiting programs, a community or a sponsored child, an application, release forms and a background check will be required. We hope you understand that these steps are necessary to ensure the safety of children and their families and that these measures will not discourage you from visiting our programs. Visits can be truly rewarding and life-changing experiences; please contact Donor Services twebster@savechildren.org or 1.800.728.3843 to learn more.

Correspondence (For One-to-One Child Sponsors Only)

In our efforts to keep children safe, we also monitor the letters and packages sent to sponsored children. To protect the privacy of all parties, we do not allow children and sponsors to exchange contact information and require that all correspondence be sent through the field office. Please note that correspondence is only available to individual (one-to-one) child sponsors.

As you can understand, we take any breach of these policies very seriously and, in the unfortunate circumstance that one should occur, we will end the sponsorship relationship.

Thank you for joining us in our efforts to keep the children we help safe by respecting our child safety policy.