Standards and policies

Child Safeguarding

Help a Child is committed to protecting children from harm and abuse. Our Child Safeguarding Policy, which is part of our Integrity Policy, describes our procedures to minimize risks and how to respond to child protection concerns in our organization. Within our Disaster Response Program, Help a Child has employed protection experts to carry out proper protection management, contextualize policies and to increase support for child protection within the project communities.

Child Safeguarding Policy – Help a Child

Help a Child declares to adhere to the internationally recognized child safeguarding standards, set out by Keeping Children Safe, to ensure that our organization does no harm through its activities, staff, partners, or volunteers. In 2021, Help a Child became a full member of the Keeping Children Safe Network.

Humanitarian Standards

Our organization adheres to the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. Help a Child is a signatory of the ICRC Code of Conduct of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief.

Help a Child aligns its work to the nine commitments of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), and is since 2024 certified against the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability by the independent auditing body HQAI. Our certification objectively demonstrates that we comply with the requirements of the CHS. It means that we put affected children and populations at the center of our programmes, include their feedback and opinion in our work and create programmes based on the needs of people.

The process to achieve certification has been very helpful, building on our culture of learning and continuous improvement in the way we respond to humanitarian and development challenges. Help a Child now has a clearer understanding of where systems, policies and practices are strong and effective, and where further improvement is needed. We received the certification after a thorough process where the auditors from HQAI – the certification body – performed a desk study, made a field visit and interviewed more than 35 people, ranging from management at head office to local staff, as well as people from the communities we work with. The CHS certification assures that Help a Child is compliant with the Commitments of the CHS and lives up to the standards expected from us. Read more about the audit

Financial Compliance

Help a Child complies with several requirements of tax authorities in both the Netherlands and countries where we have registered offices. In the Netherlands, we comply with ANBI, Erkend Goed Doel and with the accounting principles for charities in the Netherlands (RJ650). Our quality management system complies with the norm of ISO 9001:2018 which is audited by an external auditor. Also, see tab ‘Our Quality Management’.

Help a Child has several policies and procedures to manage its finances. This includes an anti-fraud and -corruption policy (part of our Integrity Policy), a procurement policy and a finance manual. The financial statements of each office are audited by an external auditor on an annual basis.

Safety & Security

Working in our field of expertise, especially in certain areas in the world, comes with risks towards our staff and our programs. Our policy describes our main safety and security principles, as well as the responsibilities of staff in various roles to contribute to a safe and secure international working environment.

Safety and Security Policy – Help a Child