1. Victorian Child Safe Standards
Neighbourhood Houses Victoria Conference
19 May 2017
Department of Health and Human Services

2. Betrayal of Trust Report
In April 2012, the Victorian Government initiated an inquiry into the handling of child abuse allegations within religious and other non- government organisations.
The inquiry’s final report, Betrayal of Trust was tabled in Parliament in November 2013 and contained 15 recommendations.
This work falls into three categories:
criminal law reform
creating child safe organisations
civil law reform
The Child Safe Standards form part of the Government’s response to the report.

3. Child Safe Standards The Standards were developed to:
drive cultural change and leadership to embed child safety in every day practice
provide a foundation upon which an organisation’s policies and practices can be built
enable staff and volunteers to feel empowered to act in the best interests of children when they have safety concerns
prevent child abuse, encourage reporting and improve responses to any allegations of child abuse
give parents comfort and confidence in the kind of culture, environment and experience they can expect for their child

4. Commission for Children and Young People
The Commission for Children and Young People is the lead oversight body for the Child Safe Standards.
The Commission’s focus regarding the Child Safe Standards is:
educating, capacity building and providing guidance
promoting continuous improvement by organisations
monitoring and enforcing compliance
The Commission has adopted a co-regulatory model with existing regulators e.g. DHHS and DET.

5. Neighbourhood Houses
The Department funds 375 Neighborhood Houses in Victoria.
The vast majority of these provide some form of services for children.
Where a Neighborhood House provides services to children or exercises care, supervision or authority over children, whether as part of its primary function or otherwise, then it is subject to the Child Safe Standards.
As good practice all organisations should introduce policies that protect children.

6. The Child Safe Standards
The Standards are about:
identifying risks to child safety in your organisation
prevention of risks
incremental and continuous improvement
cultural change
build upon existing mechanisms to protect children
making child safety everyone's business

7. What are the Standards?
Standard 1: Strategies to embed an organisational culture of child safety, including through effective leadership arrangements
Examples:
Ensure strategic direction, vision and mission includes child safety as a key goal.
Provide induction and training in recognising and responding to child abuse for leadership, relevant management, staff and volunteers, including what to do if an allegation is made or a concern raised or staff observe abusive behaviour towards a child.

8. What are the Standards?
Standard 2: A Child Safe Policy or Statement of Commitment to Child Safety
Examples:
Develop a new (or review an existing) child safe policy or statement of commitment to child safety, including a statement or description of:
what constitutes child abuse
zero tolerance of child abuse
commitment to children’s safety and best interests
prevention and management of child abuse risks, including risks presented by physical and online environments
reporting and responding to allegations of abuse

9. What are the Standards?
Standard 3: A Code of Conduct that establishes clear expectations for appropriate behaviour with children
Examples:
Ensure existing or new codes of conduct include:
clear explanation of appropriate relationships with children for staff, volunteers and families, for example, when it is appropriate for there to be physical contact
instruction on how adults should respond to any risks adults may pose to children, or that children may pose to each other, in both physical and online environments

10. What are the Standards?
Standard 4: Screening, supervision, training and other human resources practices that reduce the risk of child abuse by new and existing personnel
Examples:
Examples of how your organisation could implement this standard include the following:
undertaking face-to-face interviews
police record checks (including personal identification checks)
checking referees and qualifications
training and supervision

11. What are the Standards?
Standard 5: Processes for responding to and reporting suspected child abuse
Examples:
Comply with all legal requirements to report child abuse to appropriate authorities, including the police by calling 000 when it is suspected that a child’s safety is at immediate risk.
Publicise and make accessible for families and children avenues for reporting incidents or concerns. For example, information could be included in classes and the organisation’s website.

12. What are the Standards?
Standard 6: Strategies to identify and reduce or remove the risk of abuse
Examples:
Communicating clear processes for removing risks to children, such as rules around online communications and removing staff or volunteers who may pose a risk.
Learning from past lessons, including policy review and staff training, to manage risks.

13. What are the Standards?
Standard 7: Strategies to promote the participation and empowerment of children.
Examples:
Ensure information and processes for reporting concerns are accessible to all children
Provide children with child-appropriate and accessible information about what child abuse is, their rights to make decisions about their body and their privacy and that no one has a right to injure them.

14. Principles
In complying with the Child Safe Standards the following principles must be included as part of each standard:
promoting the cultural safety of Aboriginal children
promoting the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds 
promoting the safety of children with a disability

15. Compliance with the Standards
- It is a requirement of the department's service agreement that neighbourhood houses comply with the Standards. - The department's regulatory compliance framework (pending) will consider options for assessing funded organisations' compliance.

16. Toolkits and resources
Resource 1: Good leadership and governance in child safe organisations
Resource 2: Child safe policy and statement of commitment (including sample child safe policy and statement of commitment to child safety)
Resource 3: Code of conduct (including sample code of conduct)
Resource 4: Human resources practices for child safe organisations
Resource 5: Recruitment practices for child safe organisations
Resource 6: What to do when an allegation of child abuse is made
Resource 7: Sample incident report template
Resource 8: Self audit tool 
and-legislation/child-safe-standards-resources

17. Further information
For further information see the websites of the Commission for Children and Young People and the Department of Health and Human Services:
support/sector-support.htm
resources/policies,-guidelines-and-legislation/child-safe-standards- resources
You may also

18. Child Safe Standards and Neighbourhood Houses
QUESTIONS?

19. To receive this publication in an accessible format phone <phone number>, using the National Relay Service if required, or
Authorised and published by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne.
© State of Victoria, Department of Health and Human Services May, 2017
Except where otherwise indicated, the images in this publication show models and illustrative settings only, and do not necessarily depict actual services, facilities or recipients of services. This publication may contain images of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Where the term ‘Aboriginal’ is used it refers to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous is retained when it is part of the title of a report, program or quotation.