Following on from:

• a recommendation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) that all states and territories should implement and enforce mandatory child safe organisations standards for child-related organisations; and
• the adoption by all states and territories of the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (National Principles) as the benchmark for these standards,

states and territories around Australia have been progressively developing and implementing Child Safe Organisation Standards based on the National Principles and regulatory schemes to enforce compliance, including by schools.

To comply with the National Principles, or their state-based equivalent, a school must ensure that:

• its students have a sound knowledge of their rights, including their rights to feel safe and be heard, and of the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities that accompany these rights (Principle 1/Victorian Child Safe Standard 2)
• it informs its students about all of their rights, including to safety, information and participation; it has resources to educate its students about their rights; and it informs students about their roles and responsibilities in helping to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their peers (Principle 2/Victorian Child Safe Standard 3)
• its students have access to information, support and complaints processes in ways that are culturally safe, accessible and easy to understand, including in particular by producing child-friendly material in accessible language and formats that informs students of the support and complaints processes available to them (Principle 4/Victorian Child Safe Standard 5)
• it has an accessible, child-focused complaints handling policy; its complaints handling processes are understood by students and are culturally safe; and its students know who to talk to if they feel unsafe and what will happen when they tell someone (Principle 6/Victorian Child Safe Standard 7)
• it informs its students, in age and culturally appropriate ways, about the school’s use of technology and online safety tools (Principle 8/Victorian Child Safe Standard 9)
• its Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy (required under Principle 1/Victorian Child Safe Standard 2) is documented in a language and format that is easily understood and accessible to students, as well as others in the school community (Principle 10/Victorian Child Safe Standard 11).

In effect, these Principles mean that a school must either have child safety and wellbeing policies and procedures that are themselves completely understandable by the full range of its students (something that would be very difficult to do, given the complexity of this policy content and the likely diverse ages and backgrounds of a school’s student cohort) or develop child-friendly versions of relevant policies and procedures.

Which Policies Need Child-Friendly Versions?

To meet the above requirements, a school should have child-friendly versions of a number of its child safety and wellbeing policies and procedures, including the following.

Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy

This policy generally outlines or summarises all of the school’s policies and procedures for complying with each of the National Principles/state-based child safe standards as well as its procedures for reporting child safety incidents or concerns to the school and how the school will respond (such as by complying with relevant legal reporting obligations).

Child-friendly versions should do the same, enabling students of different ages and relevant cultural backgrounds to understand each of the National Principles/state-based child safe standards and how the school meets these requirements. Child-friendly versions could also explain how to tell the school about a child safety incident or concern and what the school’s legal obligations are when it is told, or this information could be contained in a different resource (see Complaints Handling Policy/Responding and External Reporting Policies and Procedures, below).

Child Safe Codes of Conduct

The National Principles/state-based child safe standards require a school to have a child safe code of conduct for staff and volunteers, as well as a code of conduct for students, that set out the school’s expectations for behaviour with and between students.

Child-friendly versions of these should enable students of different ages and cultural backgrounds to understand what kinds of behaviour are inappropriate at the school, whether from staff, volunteers, contractors or other students, and who to tell if it happens.

Complaints Handling Policy/Responding and External Reporting Policies and Procedures

Because a school’s complaints handling system might address all kinds of complaints, not just complaints that involve a child safety incident or concern, it may need a variety of different complaints handling policies and procedures to address these. Its general complaints handling process might set out how to make a complaint, roles and responsibilities for managing different kinds of complaints, and the school’s general process for responding to complaints. Its child-safety related complaints policies and procedures might give additional information about how to make and specific roles and responsibilities for managing child safety-related complaints, legal obligations to report complaints involving child safety incidents or concerns to external authorities, and the school’s policies and procedures for investigating and managing these kinds of complaints, as well as for how it will respond to any child safety incident or concern that occurs at the school or involves its staff, volunteers or contractors.

Because complaints handling policies and procedures are generally quite lengthy and complex (particularly for child safety-related complaints, which may result in a number of different legal external reporting obligations), child-friendly versions of these policies and procedures should be very simplified versions, that enable students of different ages and cultural backgrounds to understand who and how to tell when they have a complaint or concern, that the school will take their complaints seriously, and what they can expect the school to do in response.

How to Develop Child-Friendly Versions of Policies

The best way to develop child-friendly versions of the above policies is to consult with and involve students in their development and design. Indeed, by doing this, a school will be able to demonstrate compliance with Principle 2/Victorian Child Safe Standard 3: it will be seeking students’ views and encouraging participation in decisions that affect them, and creating an organisational environment that is friendly and welcoming for students.

Some schools may do this through their student representative body or by setting up and facilitating discussion by one or more student groups to design what child-friendly versions of the relevant policies might look like. In doing so, it is important to ensure that participants in these groups represent the full range of ages and backgrounds that make up the school’s student cohort – for example, a design developed by older students may be not at all understandable by young students. Schools that cater for both primary and secondary students, or that include students from a number of diverse cultural or linguistic backgrounds, might need to engage different groups of students to create several child-friendly versions of particular policies, so as to convey the same information to the different age or cultural/linguistic groups within the student cohort. Schools that are part of a group or system of schools may find it more resource-effective to do this on a group-wide basis. Some schools or school groups may find it useful to engage a facilitator to assist in the consultation process.

When a child-friendly version of a particular policy is required, this does not mean that a school and its students need to produce a written document that translates all of that policy’s information into “child-friendly” language. Many of the concepts and information in the above policies would be impossible to convey to young children and are likely to be information-overload even for older students. Rather, think of a child-friendly version as an age and culturally appropriate resource for conveying the policy’s most important information to students. Child-friendly versions might include a written summary of the policy in child-friendly language, but could also – or instead - include posters, animations or comics, videos, songs/raps…the list is limited only by the imagination of the students involved and the school’s willingness to put in the required time and resources to implement their ideas.