In the new year, teachers in Ontario will have to take a new sexual abuse prevention program.
The province has partnered with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to develop the new online course, which will launch on January 1, 2022.
Teachers will have to complete the course by August 31, 2022. Once they do, it will be noted on their Certificate of Qualification and the College's public register.
The course, at no cost, will give teachers an updated understanding of professional boundaries, societal standards, and potential warning signs, so they are better equipped to identify sexual abuse and report it.
"This is an opportunity to help educators better understand the issue of sexual abuse beyond common duty to report training," said Director of Education at the centre, Noni Classen. "It starts with understanding the role health professional relationships lay in the protection of children."
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection, also known as C3P, is a national charity dedicated to the safety of children. It also operates Cybertip.ca, a national tipline to report child sexual abuse and exploitation online.
Last July, the Ontario government announced it was implementing a new policy framework to protect children from sex traffickers. It required all school boards in Ontario to have a plan and anti-human trafficking protocols in place by January, building on the updated Health and Physical Education curriculum, which the government released two years ago for students in grades one to eight.