Child protection: what a well-run camp publishes
The four things that separate an operator with a real safeguarding policy from one with a paragraph of reassuring text.
1. A named protection officer
Not "our staff are trained" — a role, reachable during the stay. This is the single strongest signal in our whole index, and it is why it carries ten points.
2. A published protocol
A document you can read before you book, setting out what happens if a child reports something. If it exists but is only shown on arrival, it is not doing its job.
3. Ratios, in numbers
"Small groups" is not a ratio. A ratio is one number over another, published, and different for daytime and overnight.
4. Background checks
In Spain, work involving regular contact with minors requires a certificate confirming the absence of sexual offence convictions. Operators who carry this out generally say so. Silence is not proof of absence, but it is an odd thing to leave out.
What we do with all this
We record each of these four as a separate field with its own evidence. Where an operator publishes nothing, the camp page says "the operator does not publish this" in plain language. That gap is the most useful thing on the page.
Common questions
- Do you verify that a published protocol is any good?
- No. We record whether it is published and link to it. Assessing the content of a safeguarding policy is beyond what we can do consistently across hundreds of camps.