Last week the Victorian Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) released a new version of the Guide for Creating a Child Safe Organisation (the Guide). This 2018 version replaces the previous August 2016 version and has been updated to reflect learnings from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) and provides increased guidance for organisations in implementing the Victorian Child Safe Standards.
The Guide increases its focus on overall child safety, rather than just focusing on safety from abuse or harm. In particular the Guide has significantly increased its guidance on creating and maintaining the safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) children, children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD children), children with a disability and same-sex attracted, intersex, non-binary and gender diverse children and young people.
The Guide also provides commentary on the Royal Commission’s findings where relevant to provide reasoning for additions to certain areas of the Guide.
This article identifies key additions or changes in the Guide which can be accessed via the CCYP’s website.
The Guide has introduced definitions for disability and cultural and linguistic diversity. Disability is given the same meaning as in the Disability Act 2006 (Vic). Cultural and linguistic diversity is defined to refer to the range of different cultural and language groups represented in the population who identify as having cultural or linguistic affiliations. The term acknowledges that diversity may arise from a range of circumstances including place of birth, ancestry or ethnic origin, religion, preferred language or language spoken at home.
The Guide also expands the definitions for physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse and neglect to provide more guidance to organisations. Interestingly, the definition of “racial, cultural, religious” abuse has been removed.
This section of the Guide has been significantly updated to include:
The key change to this section is the update and relocation of the Child Safe Standards Implementation and Action Plan that was previously found under Standard 1 to Appendix 1.
The main update to this section is an update to the Sample Child Safe Policy to:
The Guide includes a significant increase in guidance for organisations writing codes of conduct. The Sample Code of Conduct has also been updated to include:
Key updates to this section of the Guide include:
Key updates to this section of the Guide include:
Key updates to this section of the Guide include:
The key change to this section of the Guide is the significant increase in guidance on what is meant by empowerment and participation, what it looks like in an organisation and practice advice for organisations in applying this Standard that had not been available in the past.
The CCYP’s Guide is exactly that – a guide. It is not mandatory for organisations to implement the recommendations or guidance in this document. However, the updated Guide reflects key findings and recommendations of the Royal Commission that are being adopted across the country. Non-government schools are required to implement the Victorian Child Safe Standards (the Standards) and this Guide provides practical solutions to key areas of compliance that had been opaque or vague in the past, for example how to implement Standard 7: Strategies to promote the participation and empowerment of children. The Guide helps organisations to take child safety beyond policies and procedures and to practically implement the Standards.
The CCYP also strongly encourages all organisations in Victoria to adopt the Standards, and the guidance in this document, irrespective of whether compliance is mandated as a move towards best practice in child safety and protection from abuse and harm.