Safeguarding Children and Young Contributors
Effective date: [27 July 2026]
APALCE Voices (ISSN: 3140-4502) is committed to enabling children and young people to express their ideas while protecting their safety, privacy, dignity, and authorship.
For this policy, APALCE applies safeguarding protections to anyone under 18 and to any person treated as a minor under the law applicable to them.
Safeguarding takes priority over publication, promotion, programme completion, or organisational convenience.
1. Our Safeguarding Principles
APALCE Voices follows these principles:
- The best interests and safety of the child come first.
- A child should be heard and involved in decisions appropriate to their age and maturity.
- Participation must be voluntary.
- A parent’s permission does not replace the child’s own understanding and willingness to participate.
- Only information reasonably necessary for submission, education, editing, and publication should be collected.
- Public recognition must never require unnecessary disclosure of identity.
- Adults working with young contributors must maintain clear professional boundaries.
- Publication may be delayed, anonymised, changed, or cancelled where risk cannot be adequately managed.
2. Adult-Mediated Participation
A minor does not become an APALCE member.
An article written by a minor must be submitted by an adult APALCE member who is the minor’s parent or legal guardian, or through another adult arrangement expressly approved for an APALCE programme.
The adult representative must:
- Have legal authority to act for the minor
- Explain the submission and publication process in an age-appropriate way
- Confirm that the minor wishes to participate
- Review privacy and publication choices with the minor
- Communicate with APALCE on the minor’s behalf
- Inform APALCE of any change in consent or circumstance that may affect safety
APALCE may request reasonable evidence of the adult’s authority where necessary.
3. Communication with Minors
All formal administrative and editorial communication concerning a minor is conducted through the parent or legal guardian.
APALCE staff, editors, instructors, and volunteers must not:
- Use a personal social media account to contact a minor privately
- Engage in undisclosed one-to-one messaging
- Request a minor’s personal telephone number or private email address without a justified and approved need
- Arrange a private in-person meeting with a minor
- Ask a minor to keep communication secret from a parent or guardian
- Request personal photographs unrelated to the programme or article
- Promise publication, awards, or advantages in exchange for money, gifts, or private contact
Where direct educational interaction occurs in a workshop, it must use an approved platform and follow the supervision arrangements announced for the programme.
One-to-one feedback must include or remain accessible to the parent or legal guardian, or take place through another formally approved safeguarding arrangement.
4. Information We Collect
APALCE collects only information reasonably required to manage the submission or programme.
For a minor, this may include:
- Legal name for administrative verification
- Approved publication name
- Broad age or school-level group
- Country or broad region
- Parent or legal guardian’s name and contact details
- Article, drafts, and editorial records
- Consent and permission records
APALCE does not normally require:
- A minor’s personal email address
- A minor’s telephone number
- Home address
- Exact school or classroom
- Daily travel route
- Personal social media account
- Government identification number
- Full date of birth
Where additional information is legally or operationally necessary, APALCE will explain why it is required and how it will be handled.
5. Publication Names and Biographies
The parent or legal guardian, in consultation with the minor, may approve:
- Full name
- English name
- Given name only
- Initials
- An approved pen name
The approved form may differ from the legal name held in administrative records.
A minor’s biography should be brief and should not normally include:
- Exact school name
- Class or teacher name
- Home neighbourhood
- Detailed daily schedule
- Contact information
- Personal social media account
APALCE may shorten or generalise a biography for safety.
6. Photographs, Audio, and Video
A photograph, recording, or video is not required for participation or publication.
Media involving a minor requires separate review and permission. General consent to publish an article does not automatically include consent to publish an image, voice, or video.
APALCE considers:
- Whether the minor understands the intended use
- Whether the parent or legal guardian has given specific permission
- Whether the image reveals a school, home, location, uniform, routine, or vulnerable circumstance
- Whether metadata or background details create an identification risk
- Whether publication may cause embarrassment, pressure, unwanted attention, or future harm
- Whether the material can be cropped, blurred, anonymised, or omitted
APALCE may decline to publish media even after permission has been provided.
Images that sexualise, humiliate, stereotype, endanger, or misrepresent a child will not be published.
7. Writing about Other Children
A young contributor must not publish identifying information about another minor without appropriate permission and editorial approval.
A contributor should not:
- Interview another minor in private
- Request sensitive personal information
- record another minor without permission
- Share photographs or contact details without consent
- Report rumours, disciplinary matters, family problems, health information, or allegations
- Identify a child who may be at risk
An interview with another minor may require consent from that minor and their parent or legal guardian.
APALCE may anonymise or remove information even where the contributor believes that permission has been given.
8. Sensitive Topics
Articles involving abuse, neglect, self-harm, violence, discrimination, medical information, family disputes, crime, immigration status, political conflict, or other sensitive matters require additional editorial review.
APALCE Voices is not an emergency service, counselling service, investigative authority, or legal reporting channel.
Where a submission raises a concern about immediate danger or possible abuse, APALCE may pause the editorial process and take steps reasonably required by applicable law and safeguarding practice.
No contributor should be asked to investigate a dangerous situation or disclose traumatic experiences for the purpose of publication.
9. Workshops and Programme Conduct
Staff, instructors, editors, and volunteers working with young participants must:
- Use approved communication and teaching platforms
- Maintain professional language and behaviour
- Avoid favouritism, humiliation, discriminatory conduct, and inappropriate personal comments
- Avoid unnecessary physical contact
- Not form secret or dependent relationships with participants
- Not exchange personal gifts, money, or private services
- Protect participant records
- Report safeguarding concerns promptly
- Follow programme supervision and attendance procedures
Parents or legal guardians must receive information about the format, contact arrangements, and safeguarding expectations of the programme.
10. Public Interaction
Public comments should normally be disabled on articles written by minors.
APALCE will not publish a minor contributor’s direct email address, telephone number, or social media link.
APALCE may remove or block comments, messages, links, or external references that expose, harass, impersonate, sexualise, threaten, or otherwise target a contributor.
APALCE cannot control all third-party sharing after an article has been published, but it may take reasonable action on material within its own services.
11. Consent, Assent, and Final Approval
Before publication, APALCE requires:
- Adult consent from the parent or legal guardian
- Confirmation that the minor understands the publication in an age-appropriate way
- The minor’s willingness to participate
- Approval of the final article
- Approval of the publication name and biography
- Separate approval for images or other media
- Approval of any agreed promotional use
A minor’s refusal or wish to stop participating should be respected even where adult consent has previously been provided.
12. Changes or Withdrawal of Consent
A parent, legal guardian, or minor may raise a concern or request a change before publication.
After publication, APALCE will consider reasonable requests to:
- Correct information
- Change the publication name
- Shorten or remove a biography
- Remove an image
- Anonymise an article
- Remove an article from public access
APALCE will give particular weight to current safety and welfare. Complete removal from search engines, caches, archives, screenshots, or third-party services cannot be guaranteed.
APALCE may retain limited administrative and consent records where necessary for legal, safeguarding, or organisational accountability.
13. Reporting a Safeguarding Concern
Contact: Safeguarding (safeguarding@apalce.org)
Please provide only the information necessary to explain the concern. Do not send highly sensitive records, identification documents, or private images unless requested through an approved secure process.
APALCE will restrict access to safeguarding reports to those who need the information to respond.
APALCE cannot promise absolute confidentiality. Information may need to be shared where necessary to protect a person, obtain professional advice, or comply with law.
For immediate danger or an emergency, contact the appropriate local emergency service or child-protection authority. Do not wait for a response from APALCE.
14. Responding to Concerns
Depending on the circumstances, APALCE may:
- Pause communication or publication
- Restrict access to information
- Remove or anonymise content
- Contact the parent or legal guardian
- Preserve relevant records
- Exclude an individual from a programme or editorial role
- Seek professional or legal advice
- Refer the matter to an appropriate authority where required
The safety and dignity of the affected person will guide the response.
15. Policy Review
This policy will be reviewed periodically and after any significant safeguarding incident, legal change, or material change to APALCE Voices programmes.
[Read the Editorial Policy]