15 Mar
2010

A new child protection training tool for the travel industry

The Training Course Every Child, Everywhere, developed by ABTA and ECPAT UK – a leading children’s rights organisation which campaigns to prevent commercial sexual exploitation of children, is now live on www.everychildeverywhere.com.

ABTA and ECPAT were granted funding from Comic Relief to develop this important online training course to help everyone working in the travel industry to protect children. Every Child, Everywhere covers all child protection issues relevant to the travel industry both for children living in destinations and children on holiday.

Every Child, Everywhere aims to ensure that travel industry staff are well equipped to deal with any problems that might arise and to help companies develop policies and procedures which will best protect children in resort or when they are travelling.
The full course consists of three modules:
• Introduction and Module 1 ‘Following Child Protection Policies and Procedures’. 
• Module 2 focuses on implementation 
• Module 3 on development of Child Protection Policies.   
All staff should take module 1, while levels 2 and 3 may be more relevant to staff in supervisory and management roles.

Christine Beddoe, Director of ECPAT UK said: “ECPAT UK has a long history of working with the travel industry on child protection issues and we are happy to be working with ABTA to produce this essential training tool. Children everywhere need to be kept safe from harm and this tool will give travel professionals an understanding of child protection issues and of the importance of robust child protection policies and procedures.”

Vicki Wolf, ABTA’s Professional Development Manager said: “Every Child, Everywhere is free of charge and ABTA encourages all of its members and anyone involved in the travel industry to take the training so that staff are well informed and companies have policies and procedures in place to deal with this very sensitive issue.”

The training course can now be accessed at: www.everychildeverywhere.com. For details of all other ABTA training available, go to http://www.abta.com/resources/training.