Safeguarding young Muslims

The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board delivered training in West London on the 27th March 2011 on Safeguarding and Engaging young Muslims in Madrassah environment, the session was held at the Harrow Central Mosque.

The course covered 3 sessions:

* Every Muslim Child Matters agenda
* Safeguarding Muslim Children
* Engaging young people and children in an Madrassah environment

The workshop was facilitated by Shaykh Misbah Yazdani and Sr Sadhia from the London Fatwa Council.

The aim of session one was to contextualise the concept of the Every Child Matters Agenda and see how this structure of care can be shared by Mosques and Madrassahs. Legal and Islamic perspectives were shared to explain the importance of creating mechanisms to support children to:

* be healthy
* stay safe
* enjoy and achieve
* make a positive contribution
* achieve economic well-being.

The concept of Every Child Matters agenda stems from the Victoria Climbie case in 2000, which highlighted how all professionals need to co-ordinate their approach to children at risk. Mosques and Madrassahs not only have moral duty but also a legal obligation to contribute to the Every Child Matters agenda.

Session two, was more directed towards the Muslim community on how to safeguard Muslim children. The aim was to explain what is meant by safeguarding and the principles of the safeguarding policy, which involves keeping children and young people safe from a much wider range of potential harm and to explore preventative action, not just reaction.

Creating an awareness that there are many types of abuse from emotional to physical and it is the responsibility of Mosques to ensure no children are harmed whilst attending the Mosque and at risk children are protected. All staff, including the Imam and teachers have a duty of care.

 Shaykh Yazdani explained processes and procedures required to be in place at Mosques and Madrassahs which included
* Staff screening e.g. CRB checks, references
* Safeguarding training
* Keep parents informed.

The final session focused on engaging young Muslims positively in Madrassah environment. The two objectives of the session were to highlight the need to engage young people positively in the Madrassah and the need to contextualise traditional teaching and learning. The participants were exposed to models of good practice in teaching, building better teacher-student interaction etc.

VAK (visual-auditory-kinaesthetic) questionnaires were given to all attendees to assess people's preferred learning styles and to design learning methods and experiences that match their preferences. VAK is a good way for Mosques to use in order to find out what is needed for their students.

The training was well attended by Mosques management committee members, trustees, Imams and madrassah teachers.