Prevention is often chronically underfunded, politically marginalised, and hard to talk about. This was the reality Protect Children faced at the start. They've since overcome it, scaling their ReDirection Programme across seven countries and securing a government commission.
Protect Children is a non-profit organisation based in Finland, dedicated to ending all forms of sexual violence against children. Their work focuses on research driven interventions, education, support for victims and their families, and advocacy.
Part of this work is the ReDirection Programme – an anonymous, online self-help resource that supports behaviour change in individuals at risk of offending, in order to prevent sexual violence against children.
The ReDirection Programme – an anonymous, online self-help resource that supports behaviour change in individuals at risk of offending, in order to prevent sexual violence against children.
Working initially in Finland only, following the Scale Accelerator, the ReDirection Programme is now available in 7 European countries with active interest from France, Lithuania, Slovenia, Mexico, Bolivia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Morocco, Nigeria and the United States.
Working directly with potential offenders is one of the most sensitive and contested areas of child protection, which makes it difficult to fundraise for and even harder to bring governments on board.
But the work Protect Children was doing was effective in changing behaviour, and they had a tested solution: their ReDirection programme, validated by two successful clinical trials at Johns Hopkins University and the Karolinska Institute.
When they joined the Scale Accelerator, the ReDirection programme wasn’t formalised into something scalable, and it was only available in a few languages.
And while the organisation had strong networks in the sector, the team required the knowledge and the structured model to be able to scale the programme effectively under challenging circumstances, operating in such a difficult space.
During the Scale Accelerator, four key internal shifts happened for Protect Children, which enabled them to reimagine how they worked and addressed the challenge at hand.
As they went through the programme, Protect Children realised that scaling and financial sustainability were mutually reinforcing, and that charging for their work was essential for long-term impact. With the support of our consultants, they developed a subscription model for ReDirection, charging others to deliver it in their own country contexts.
This meant scaling could impact children’s lives globally while also “having an income stream that provides sustainability and non-project specific funding.” The organisation was no longer dependent on grant to grant funding, freeing up time and attention for the work itself.
During the Scale Accelerator, Protect Children developed and tested two pathways – an NGO subscription model and a government route – quickly learning that NGOs were the more viable early partner.
Where a subject is publicly sensitive, such as a prevention model targeting potential offenders, government adoption tends to be slow and politically cautious, viewed through a lens of risk and reputation. Other NGOs share the same urgency and are often more adaptable, with the structures to move quickly.
This made them the natural early market for ReDirection. Once impact was evidenced, governments became a strong partner, as Protect Children found after the Accelerator ended.
Packaging the offer into a priced product – a partner toolkit, training, support to adapt it locally, and a co-branded platform – was itself the turning point. It let Protect Children envision ReDirection as a programme others could run, rather than something they had to deliver themselves indefinitely.
Global reach, once an ambitious goal, felt achievable – reflecting newfound confidence and growing credibility across the sector. Within a year, they were inviting partners to lead delivery in their own countries.
Protect Children joined to scale ReDirection. By the end of the engagement, they realised the frameworks and knowledge built could apply across their other interventions.
“Once we had gained that confidence from the Scale Accelerator, we started realising that we can utilise this knowledge across our work.”
Finland, Poland, Latvia, Croatia, Italy, Estonia, UK.
A government approached Protect Children directly to commission a new youth version of ReDirection to roll out nationally, which will be scaled globally once finalised.
Protect Children are in conversation with partners and governments in France, Lithuania, Slovenia, Mexico, Bolivia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Morocco, Nigeria and the United States.
