Keeping children and young people safe has shifted from focusing solely on child protection and response to incidents, to include a preventative approach aimed at reducing the risk of abuse and harm occurring in organisational settings. This approach is known as safeguarding and centres on the importance of building a sustainable child safe culture in all environments where children and young people live, learn, play, and work. Creating safe educational settings through strong safeguarding practice plays a critical role in preventing child abuse and harm.
Instigated by the sobering results of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2017, and the subsequent National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, the Australian Childhood Foundation (the Foundation) has seen important changes to Safeguarding children and young people emerge in legislation, regulations, and community expectations. Whilst child protection and the response to incidents of child abuse and neglect continues to play a critical role in keeping children safe, Safeguarding children refers to the contextual measures in place that form a whole of organisation culture to safeguard all children in every environment through strong safeguarding leadership, policies, and procedures.
All States and Territories have agreed to align with the Federal Government’s National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, and some States have gone further to introduce state-based child safe legislation such as the Victorian Child Safe Standards, NSW Child Safe Standards and the Tasmania Child and Youth Safe Organisations Framework.
Safeguarding is aincludes critical prevention tooltools for schools to protect our most vulnerable, foster a safe learning environment and protect the wellbeing of students as they develop. Although efforts and progress are being made to strengthen the culture of safeguarding in educational settings, the Foundation recognises that there is more work to be done. There are key components of Safeguardingsafeguarding that schools can observe in promoting sustainable cultural change to keepingsafeguard children safeand young people in the school environment:
01
Schools must establish a robust safeguarding governance framework to support the implementation of safeguarding measures and ensure appropriate oversight of the physical, online and personnel related risk management. However, our WTW Child Safe Questionnaire for independent schools [1] revealed that only 67% of schools currently have a dedicated committee focusing on child safety focused on safeguarding children and young people.
67% of schools currently have a dedicated committee focused on safeguarding children and young people.
Along with this, 7% of schools reported they do not have dedicated staff roles or responsibilities to promote a strong Safeguarding culture.
Ensuring that the safeguarding efforts are driven and championed by good governance demonstrates the schools zero tolerance of all forms of harm to children and young people, embeds safeguarding practices and models expected behaviours.
02
According to the same questionnaire, 96% of schools reported they comply with their state-based child protection legislation. However, as highlighted above, while also a critical avenue of response to child abuse, the focus of child protection legislation is to respond to incidents of harm experienced, or likely to be experienced by children and young people, in their home and community. It has less focus on the preventative measures that safeguarding requires in organisational settings. Having robust school-wide safeguarding policies and procedures in place will significantly reduce the likelihood of harm to children and young people occurring within a school environment.
03
Evidence provided in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that perpetrators of child sexual abuse do not fit one specific profile. It is therefore important to employ a range of strategies to identify and screen out unsuitable values, attitudes, and behaviours in potential recruitment candidates.
Our questionnaire revealed that while many schools have begun to shift their focus towards safeguarding recruitment practices, 7% of schools do not have documented employment policies which support safeguarding recruitment practices. 11% of schools reported they had not completed appropriate reference checks for potential employees and 32% of schools identifying they did not adhere to screening in accordance with relevant government legislation. Strong safeguarding recruitment practices are the first line of defence against child abuse occurring in organisational settings. It is therefore important that schools include safeguarding at every step of the recruitment and onboarding stages irrespective of whether the position will have direct contact with children and young people.
32% of schools identifying they did not adhere to screening in accordance with relevant government legislation.
04
The questionnaire offered positive insights into the level of training provided by schools about their safeguarding policies and procedures. Results showed that 96% of schools provide a level of training for all personnel regarding policies and procedures in relation to safeguarding children and young people. Schools are encouraged to continue their efforts to maintain staff training levels. It is important that any changes to the safeguarding legislation or school policies are communicated widely and that there are continuous improvement measures to ensure changes to policies and procedures have been implemented.
05
Safeguarding children and young people is a community wide responsibility. It is critical that a school community is not only aware of the school’s zero tolerance for child abuse, but that the school community actively takes part in the safeguarding of children and young people. Engaging with students, parents and caregivers about the school’s safeguarding policies and procedures is a critical element in safeguarding practice. However, the WTW questionnaire revealed that 26% of schools do not provide information sessions for the school community to promote safeguarding awareness.
Schools are strongly encouraged to explore options for ensuring the school community is well-informed about the school’s safeguarding responsibilities and the school community’s broader role in creating a ‘whole of school’ safeguarding culture.
26% of schools do not provide information sessions for the school community to promote safeguarding awareness
Schools are strongly encouraged to explore options for ensuring that the school community is well-informed about the school’s child Safeguarding responsibilities and the community’s broader role in creating a child safe school culture.
06
While the majority of schools identified they have safeguarding incident recording processes in place, 5% of schools indicated they do not have a clearly documented response to allegations in connection with safeguarding incidents. School incident reports also typically occurred in relation to allegations of serious abuse and harm and did not address reports of low-level breaches of policy or concerning conduct. Capturing safeguarding concerns at the earliest opportunity can assist in identifying potential grooming behaviours.
Schools are encouraged to explore how they capture data trend analysis relating to low level concerns and near-miss incidents that will inform protective intervention measures such as staff training, performance management, and regular policy and procedure reviews.
The WTW Education Team have worked closely with The Australian Childhood Foundation to provide you with an exclusive offer by promoting a pathway to safeguarding support that will ensure compliance against safeguarding standards and build sustainable cultural change in your school via the Foundation’s Safeguarding Children Accreditation Program. A partnership approach with a trusted provider, the Safeguarding Accreditation Program is a 3 year ‘up-front’ investment to develop a culture of safeguarding children and young people at your school.
As WTW’s public liability insurer partner, Probitas has committed to collaborating with WTW and the Foundation to reduce the risk of abuse and harm to children and young people by improving safeguarding compliance and culture through the Foundation’s Safeguarding Children Accreditation Program.
*Schools already engaged with the Foundation may be entitled to a WTW pro-rata refund of premiums already paid. Please speak to your WTW broker for more information.
The WTW Education Team can also help facilitate a discussion with the Foundation in offering advice and guide you in making the right choices about your school’s safeguarding practice.
Your local WTW contact can be found on our website
Alternatively, you can contact the Foundation for further information
