On Tuesday 22 March 2016 over 200 people watched CompliSpace’s School Governance Webinar: Child Protection Revolution: Are you ready? A recording of the Webinar is accessible here.
The Webinar explained:
The feedback from the Webinar showed that there are still many areas of uncertainty for schools when it comes to understanding and implementing the new child protection laws.
This article addresses the seven most frequently asked questions that were received following the Webinar.
Whilst the Child Safe Standards and Ministerial Order 870 (Ministerial Order) don’t expressly refer to a ‘Child Safety Officer’ or similar, the Ministerial Order does specify that a school’s governing authority must develop strategies to embed a culture of child safety and must allocate roles and responsibilities for achieving these strategies. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) publication “An Overview of the Victorian Child Safe Standards” goes further and makes reference to a Child Safety Officer / Champion in its examples of how an organisation could implement the Standards.
Generally it is anticipated that a school will appoint existing staff members as Child Safety Officers or similar, although a dedicated position may be created should it be justified as a result of a school’s internal risk assessment.
The Ministerial Order requires that a school provides training (including induction training) for all new staff on a school’s policies, codes, practices and procedures governing child safety and child-connected work, however it does not set out specific requirements in relation to the training of Child Safety Officers. Given the critical role of a Child Safety Officer in being the first point of contact in responding to and managing child abuse notifications, as well as being a champion of child protection, it would be expected that the provision of more detailed training for these individuals would be a central part of a school’s overall strategy for the embedding of a culture of child safety.
This additional training should be coordinated by the school although it may be provided by a specialist child protection organisation.
The commentary to Standard 4 within “An Overview of the Victorian Child Safe Standards” provides more detail with respect to ongoing training requirements.
The core focus of the Child Safe Standards is to embed a culture of child safety within an organisation. In order to comply with the Standards, a child’s safety should be protected wherever possible regardless if a risk to their safety comes from a school employee, volunteer, parent or fellow student.
Standard 7 acknowledges that students need to be educated about acceptable standards of behaviour and child abuse prevention and reporting in an age-appropriate manner.
The question of the application of the Standards to students is quite complex as some students may be classified as ‘adults’ under Victorian legislation and different legal definitions of a ‘child’ exist under Victorian statutes.
The Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 (Vic) is the Act which prescribes the Child Safe Standards and that Act defines a child to be a person under the age of 18. Therefore, for the purposes of the Child Safe Standards and the Ministerial Order, references to a ‘child’ should be interpreted to mean a person under the age of 18. But under the Children Youth and Families Act 2005 (CYFA) a child is defined as a person aged under 17. In addition some of the reporting obligations under the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) relate to offences committed against a child under the age of 16 years.
While it is confusing to have varying definitions, the logic behind the differences is that children of varying ages should have varied responsibilities appropriate to their age, and children of varying ages require varied levels of protection.
To simplify the differences, a school should ensure that the information in its child protection program reflects the following principles:
Schools must be fully compliant with the changes by 1 August 2016. ‘Phase two organisations’ are those that provide services to children but are not funded or regulated by the Victorian Government, for example churches and overnight camp providers. Phase two organisations need to be compliant with the Standards by 1 January 2017. The reality is that all organisations in Victoria that provide services to children should be working towards compliance now.
Some States and Territories have already implemented requirements which, like the Child Safe Standards in Victoria, focus on the culture within the organisation. By way of example South Australia has created a similar system to Victoria by introducing Principles of Good Practice for Child Safe Environments to be followed as a legal requirement for schools and the Australian Capital Territory requires schools, as a requirement of registration, to develop student welfare policies with regard to the National Safe Schools Framework.
Whilst it is not possible to predict the future with 100% certainty, logic dictates that other States and Territories will move in the same direction as ultimately it is the culture and work practices of an organisation that will dictate the overall effectiveness of a child protection program rather than its policies.
If the school is dealing with personal records, privacy laws such as the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) apply. The child protection changes do not directly affect the privacy laws however as schools develop their child protection strategies they should ensure that they are fully compliant with the APPs and that their staff are trained as to their legal obligations when dealing with personal information. For example, a recent finding by the Privacy Commissioner saw a Brisbane non-government school fined $7,500 after it included personal information about a student in a School Council information pack. See our School Governance article about the finding here.
The Ministerial Order provides very specific guidance for schools in relation to what needs to be included in policies and procedures relating to the Standards, particularly in terms of a ‘child safe policy’. The DHHS’ overview document, referred to earlier in this article, also provides comprehensive guidance on elements to be included in policies, procedures and staff training.
It is very important that schools understand that while there are templates or examples of child safe policies available from various government and non-government organisations, the Standards and the Ministerial Order go well beyond pure documentation and require cultural change be embedded within the day-to-day work practices of a school. This is in fact the crux of the changes. It is no longer about policies and what schools say they do, it is now all about what schools actually do in practice.
For more information about the Standards and what they require of your school, please see our briefing paper: ‘The New Victorian Child Safe Standards – A radical shift in your school’s child protection obligations’.