Why Child Safeguarding Matters in Camps and Youth Programmes
How did your childhood summers look? Were you sent off to your grandparents in the countryside, only touching the asphalt of the big city again when the end of August arrived? Or were you counting down the days until that one particular camp – the one you already knew would become the highlight of your year because, somehow, it had never disappointed you before, and this was already your third summer going back? Or maybe you simply shrugged your shoulders at the beginning of June and thought: “Well, we’ll wing it. Let’s see what happens.”
Either way, summer is approaching, and with it comes that familiar excitement children and young people know so well – fewer responsibilities, long evenings outside, late-night swims, and endless possibilities for new friendships. In that landscape, camps, youth exchanges, outdoor activities, and international mobility projects become more than just something to do during school break. For many children and young people, these experiences become defining memories.
And it is exactly these memories we want to talk about.
What kind of responsibility do we – as adults – carry when we are helping shape the memories children and young people will take with them into adulthood? Are we creating memories rooted in trust, emotional and physical safety, respect for boundaries, and understanding that consent matters? Memories of relationships built on mutual respect and care? Because when this privilege is misused – the privilege of being trusted by children and young people, of shaping their experiences – what can emerge instead are memories of fear, confusion, neglect, abuse of power, and trauma.
Camps, youth exchanges, and non-formal learning spaces are all environments built around power dynamics, whether we acknowledge them or not. Adults supervise, lead, guide, evaluate, comfort, discipline, and create the emotional climate of these spaces. Children and young people are expected to trust us. To listen to us. To rely on us.
But how often do we stop and ask ourselves whether all adults working in these environments actually understand the responsibility that comes with this power? And I do not mean only qualifications on paper. I mean understanding safeguarding. Understanding boundaries.. Understanding how easily trust, admiration, emotional closeness, or authority can be misused – intentionally or unintentionally..
When we talk about child safeguarding, we often imagine obvious danger or “stranger danger.” Yet research consistently shows that children are most often harmed not by strangers, but by people they know, trust, admire, or depend on. Part of the challenge is that we are generally better at recognising violence when it is visible. We know how to identify pushing, hitting, shouting, humiliation, threats, or name-calling. These behaviours clearly violate boundaries and are easier to label as harmful. Grooming, however, requires special attention because it rarely looks like violence in the beginning. Quite the opposite.
Grooming is not typically violent at first glance. It is a gradual, manipulative process through which an adult builds trust, emotional closeness, secrecy, and dependency in order to gain access to a child or young person for exploitative purposes. It does not begin with harm. It often begins with attention. With care. With compliments. With emotional support. With making a child or young person feel seen, understood, valued, and special. Step by step, trust is established, and that trust is later exploited for harmful purposes – most often sexual abuse.
Importantly, grooming does not happen only online. Research on institutional child sexual abuse has shown that grooming frequently occurs in organisational settings such as schools, churches, sports clubs, camps, and youth programmes. Camps are especially vulnerable environments because they combine many known safeguarding risk factors: temporary staffing, informal social dynamics, overnight stays, emotional bonding, physical activities, and situations where adults and young people spend extended time together outside their usual support systems. And this is precisely why safeguarding cannot be reduced to background checks alone.
A safe environment is not created simply because an organisation “has good people.” In fact, one of the most difficult realities about grooming is that perpetrators are often perceived as charismatic, caring, helpful, and trustworthy. They may be the counsellor children adore, the youth worker who “really understands young people,” or the facilitator everyone sees as dedicated and empathetic. Grooming often succeeds not only because a child is manipulated, but because the surrounding adults and institutions are groomed too. This is where safeguarding culture becomes essential.
Safeguarding is not only about reacting to abuse after harm has occurred. It is about creating structures, boundaries, and organisational cultures that reduce opportunities for abuse to happen in the first place.
So what does this mean in practice for camps and youth organisations this summer?
It means talking openly about boundaries before problems arise. It means ensuring staff understand that secrecy between adults and children is never acceptable. It means recognising “red flag behaviours” early – excessive one-on-one attention, private communication outside organisational channels, gift-giving, emotional dependency, or creating “special” relationships with particular participants. It also means understanding that safeguarding is not only about children’s behaviour. It is about adult responsibility
Children and young people are often taught to obey adults, avoid conflict, and prioritise being liked. Many do not have the language to describe manipulation or boundary violations. Others may feel ashamed, confused, or afraid of “getting someone in trouble,” especially when the adult involved is respected by the wider community. Without education about consent, boundaries, healthy relationships, and emotional safety, children may struggle to recognise grooming for what it is. This is why safeguarding training must become a normal and expected part of youth work. Not because we want to create fear or suspicion around every adult-child interaction, but because safe environments do not emerge accidentally. They are built intentionally – through policies, accountability, education, and the willingness to have uncomfortable conversations before harm occurs.
The good news is that safeguarding is not something abstract. It can be learned, practised, and embedded into everyday work. Clear boundaries, codes of conduct, safer communication practices, and shared organisational responsibility all help reduce the risk of harm and create environments where children and young people can thrive.
As summer begins and camps open their doors to hundreds of children and young people, safeguarding cannot remain a box-ticking exercise hidden in organisational paperwork. It must become part of everyday practice, everyday conversations, and everyday responsibility. Whatever activities we create for children and young people, they should be spaces where they learn that their voice matters, their boundaries deserve respect, and healthy relationships are grounded in trust and consent. The responsibility for creating such environments does not belong to children. It belongs to us – adults.
Because children should leave camps carrying heartwarming memories, a sense of belonging, and confidence, not trauma disguised as “special attention.”
Madara Mazjane
Expert on Gender-based Violence Prevention
MARTA Center
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This article is inspired by the LADDER project and handbook developed by the consortium of organisations Academy of Experience (Hungary), MARTA Centre (Latvia), Joint (Italy), and Las Niñas del Tul (Spain) on inclusion, safeguarding, and support for especially vulnerable young people in international non-formal learning environments.
The Handbook offers practical guidance for organisations, facilitators, and youth workers on creating safer and more inclusive spaces for all participants. If you work with children and young people – whether in camps, youth exchanges, schools, or non-formal education – it is a valuable resource for strengthening safeguarding practices and ensuring that every participant can learn, grow, and belong in safety.
Ladder project is supported by the European Union.
You can access the handbook here:
Marta Centre Handbook on Inclusion and Support for Vulnerable Youth in International Non‑Formal Learning