AIBU to be horrified and frightened by this?

[Bidgiegerr]

Actually, I know I'm not but I don't know what to do.

My friend is involved with a registered charity that does breaks for children from overseas. They pay the airfare, and they stay with host families. My friend is a host. She mentioned today that it's very easy to become a host family because the charity doesn't do any CRB (or whatever they're called now) checks, and don't ask about sleeping arrangements. The children are aged between about 6 and 17 and are in orphanages in their home country.

I felt sick at how vulnerable these children are, and also at how probably vulnerable my friend is too. She isn't sure what to do and lives the children that come to stay, she has the same ones each year, and so doesn't want to lose touch with them.

Their website is suitably vague, and there's a freetext search box on it. When I searched for things like "safeguard" or "protection" there's nothing. Not a word.

WWYD?

Charity Commission are the people to contact.

…assuming it's in England or Wales

Care commission in scotland thars who regulates charities

So they could get away with no checks if they call it an exchange? How does that work?

I am not sure I do think if you are unnerved by this you have to check it out and get advice even for your own piece of mind

Read an article recently that pedos and so on target charities abroad and even set them up and work in them as they know vulnerable children there....

yes its awful

You should definitely report to the charity commission (charities regulator), and I would also think you should talk to nspcc and police really

Holy shit look at this:

"When are DBS checks not required?

The only exception to the requirement for DBS checks is in a situation where overseas parents accept the responsibility for the selection of the host family. This is a private arrangement between the two families and no check would be required as the school will not take responsibility for this arrangement.

In this situation a relationship will have been built up between the two families over time, perhaps through a pen-pal scheme for example, so that the overseas parents can make an informed choice about sending their child to stay with the host family. This will still apply even if the school introduced the two families originally."

So because the orphanage has a relationship of sorts with the charity they can send kids over DBS free. I feel sick.

I'm really surprised by this. I work for a charity. All our trustees and our paid staff and volunteers who work with children and/or vulnerable adults, have to have DBS checks - and we have to tick to say they have them when we register the trustees names online, and we have to tick to say that all our centres have appropriate safeguarding policies. None of these involve residential care !

Then again DHs aunt has for many years hosted foreign students over to do an English course - and I'm not sure she has to be checked for that!

None of my DC will ever do an exchange to another family's home.

Don't forget though that just because someone has a clean DBS check, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily okay, just that they haven't been convicted of child abuse

DBS checks are useful, but not cast iron.

very true, hidden

however, at least complying with the DBS regs and having safeguarding policies and guidelines in place, shows that charities are taking things seriously and doing what they can, rather than just assuming people are the salt of the earth and would do nothing wrong

""So because the orphanage has a relationship of sorts with the charity they can send kids over DBS free. I feel sick.""

No they can't.

The difference that the charity is not housing the children, unknown hosts are.

The orphanage can allow the charity to house the children, but the charity still has to comply with UK law.

The difference is the paper trail.

If, say one of the 13 year old girls came back pregnant, or another child with signs of abuse. The DBS would lead to identifying who they had stayed with.

If no DBS is in place, anyone could temporally rent a place and have a child.

Likewise the charity has a duty of care, so a young person, that is dangerous, baring in mind that child soldiers are forced to commit rapes, from the age of 11+, they won't be in the scheme.

We have very specific laws and policies around this.