International Child Protection Certificate Launched

It has become common practice that UK nationals or UK Registered Sex Offenders will travel overseas to gain access to vulnerable children for the purposes of sexually abusing them. They do this by seeking direct contact with children through employment, volunteering and charity work.

In a joint initiative, the National Crime Agency's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (NCA-CEOP) and ACRO have developed the International Child Protection Certificate (ICPC) to help protect children from offenders.

The ICPC is a criminal record check against police and intelligence databases located in the UK. It is similar to the DBS check and provides information on convictions and cautions as well as impending prosecutions and offences that are under investigation.

Schools and organisations that are registered for the ICPC scheme can request a job applicant to provide a certificate as part of their recruitment process. Furthermore, existing employees can be asked to periodically produce an ICPC as part of their ongoing inspection processes.

When used alongside robust safeguarding procedures, the ICPC enables overseas schools and organisations to make informed decisions about whether the people they employ are suitable to work with children.

If you are an organisation functioning abroad, please include the ICPC within your recruitment process. You will be taking an important step in helping to protect vulnerable children from those individuals who intend to sexually abuse and exploit them. For more information, including in other languages, please visit: www.acro.police.uk/icpc.