Child Care and Protection
Marymount School of Barranquilla has a moral and legal duty to look after the welfare of its students. Child abuse and neglect are major concerns in the modern world and represent serious violations of children's rights and constitute obstacles to educational goals with respect to physical, emotional and spiritual development.
"Our goal is to build and maintain a proactive environment that protects children by either preventing child abuse before it occurs or ensuring its earliest possible detection, reporting and intervention."
Normative Statement
Based on two premises
1
Marymount Barranquilla takes a preventative and interventive approach to ensure a safe space for students and to further support those who may be experiencing abuse and neglect in any aspect of their lives.
2
The school/parent partnership is essential to provide the highest level of safety and care for our children.
Supporting the child, family and community
The child
Children at risk include those who have a difficult temperament, rebelliousness, health problems or social or academic difficulties, and those who are unaware of their rights to protection.
Marymount
Promotes respect, study and social skills, teaches about protective rights, healthy relationships and assertiveness through a support system.
The family
Risk characteristics include parents under high stress, families in need of support and access to resources, socially isolated, unusually high expectations of their children, history of inappropriate disciplinary practices when they were children.
Marymount
Works with parents to understand appropriate discipline practices, understanding and healthy child protection practices.
The community
Risk characteristics include limited rules on child protection, unusually high stress burden on parents, acceptance of inappropriate behavior with children (excessive corporal punishment), unusually high expectations for children to achieve their goals.
Marymount
Implements the Child Care and Protection policy, trains teachers to recognize abuse, psychologists to support families in need, trains and supports parents in protective behaviors, creates networks within the community, health services and local authorities for referrals.
Education and Training
At Colegio Marymount de Barranquilla we use a preventive approach to promote a healthy environment for the socio-emotional development of students within the educational community, addressing a variety of topics (from our main themes biological/sexual, psycho-affective, ethical/values and prevention) for our students from Nursery to Grade 12.
We address an integral part of the children's education by repeating many times during the school year and including sequentially developed materials, systematic and specific skills, training and components such as classroom training combined with parent involvement and the use of interactive instructional techniques.