A judge at the Western Australian District Court has criticised a Perth high school and the Department for Child Protection (the DCP) for failing to act on the child abuse disclosure of a 14-year-old girl. The girl had been abused by a paedophile for three years when she came forward, and the school had failed to act on her statement. The man had also abused three other girls and was jailed earlier this week for abuse that went on for two decades.

Failure to listen

Three years after the abuse, the girl disclosed the abuse to a special educator following a sex education program. The educator then reported this to the deputy principal, who dismissed the allegations by saying that the girl was making up stories. The West Australian reports that a separate report to the DCP also failed to lead to any action.

The man was jailed for 12 years for the abuse of four victims. The judge told the court that, if the reports had been attended to, the abuse could have been discovered a decade earlier. The inaction of both the school and the DCP was strongly criticised by the judge and described as an ‘abject failure’.

Cultural change: Focusing on child safety

The attitudes of a school towards child safety and the degree to which child protection policies and procedures are implemented determine whether a school has a culture that prioritises child safety. Laws in Australia, such as the Child Safe Standards in Victoria, have shifted the focus to the overall culture of the school. See our earlier article: New Child Safe Standards to be introduced in Victoria.

A child safe culture goes beyond what policies and procedures are written by the school; it goes to whether these are implemented and the students’ experience. If a student is ignored when they attempt to disclose abuse, as was the case in the above scenario, there was clearly a failure on the school’s part to ensure that a student’s disclosure was treated sensitively and seriously. If the statements of children are ignored, they are unlikely to feel empowered to come forward a second time.

In Australia, child abuse legislation has been in the spotlight due to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Child safety has therefore focused on ensuring that child is identified early and there is intervention to ensure the child’s safety. However, if a school wishes to ensure that students feel empowered and safe within the school environment, it is important to look beyond the worst case scenarios of child abuse. Often, there are more common and subtle ways in which students can feel alienated or uncomfortable in a school environment which could be indicative of a poor child safe culture.

A recent UK report exposed the level to which many female students feel unsafe or harassed by male students without any intervention from school staff. The Guardian reports that 71 per cent of students had heard female students called sexual nicknames such as ‘slut’ on a near daily basis. Other students reported that they had their bra unhooked in class without any consequences for the male student, other than a general request to settle down and focus in class. Although such incidents do not fall under a child protection program per se, they go towards the overall culture of the school and the ability of staff to intervene in instances when students feel unsafe.

Legal compliance in Australia

Embedding a culture of compliance within a school may seem like a vague and non-specific goal, but creating a positive, child safe culture is set to be part of the registration requirements of Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. In order to ensure that students are empowered to report when they have been subjected to abuse or harassment, schools should:

• create policies and procedures for child safety;
• train staff on child protection and child safety;
• have clear processes for students if they wish to come forward; and
• communicate openly, respectfully and sensitively with students who have come forward.