Australian Childhood Foundation (the Foundation) has operated its Safeguarding Children Accreditation program since 2009. The program was endorsed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in 2015 allowing the Foundation to use its Safeguarding Children Accreditation Symbol as a nationally recognised symbol for organisations meeting its safeguarding standards. Since 2009 the Foundation has supported hundreds of organisations to meet its Accreditation program and has expanded the program to meet the 2019 National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (National Principles) and state- and territory-based child safe standards. Through its support of a wide variety of organisations, the Foundation has learnt a lot about what a strong child safe organisation looks like.

Clear commitment to child safety

Child safe organisations first and foremost view child safety as paramount. They reflect the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), including the fundamental principle that the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration in all actions and decisions concerning children. This includes:

• children not being discriminated against for any reason in accessing their rights.
• organisations supporting children’s right to physical, cognitive, emotional and social development.
• children having the right to participate, be heard and be taken seriously in all actions and decisions that affect them.

This view is embeded throughout a child safe organisation from its governance to its operational levels, with appropriate resourcing to match the organisations intentions. Successful child safe organisations then operationalise this commitment by creating guidelines, policies and practices that privilege the best interests of the child, protect them from harm and empower them to participate in matters that affect them.

Understand the relationship between children’s engagement, safety and wellbeing

Child safe organisations understand that the impact of institutional child abuse is profound, lifelong and cannot be measured, and that children’s safety and rights must be intertwined with the organisation’s culture, operations and practices.  They also understand that the National Principles are interdependent and reinforce one another to reduce the level of risk of institutional child abuse occurring.

Such organisations recognise that the cultural, structural and environmental factors that shape the extent to which an organisation is child-friendly has a causal effect on empowering children, families and personnel to raise and respond effectively to child safety concerns.  Based on this recognition, child safe organisations:

• embed systemic mechanisms throughout the organisation that allow for child safe issues to be raised and addressed (e.g. committees to review child safety data)
• ensure that child safety is a golden thread that runs through the actions and behaviours of its programs and personnel. This includes:
  – child safety controls being embedded in different aspects of its programs
  – recruiting and supporting personnel who know or can learn how to best support children
  – personnel, families and children being able to provide coherent and considered responses to mitigate child safety risks.

An example of the interdependence of the National Principles

There are many ways that organisations can operationalise the National Principles for their own specific context. The example below provides an example of how the National Principles must be seen as an interdependent. This example is illustrative in nature and organisations are encouraged, based on National Principle 9, “regular improvement” to consider how they they can operationalise them effectively.

National Principle 6 is “effective complaints management”. This is a specific principle as it asks organisations to develop a complaint handling process. This contrasts with broader National Principle such as National Principle 1, “committed leadership, governance and culture.” The rationale for such a specific principle is that there is always a degree of risk in every organisation, and that children, families and personnel should feel empowered to report concerns and know how to report concerns.

While this National Principle is intuitively limited, an effective complaints management process in isolation will not sufficiently reduce the level of risk of child abuse occurring. To support an effective complaints management process there also needs to be, at a minimum, for example:

• personnel need to be trained to know what to report on, where to report and how to respond to disclosures (Principle 7).
• personnel need to feel empowered to report concerns and to know that their concerns will result in appropriate action that protects children (Principle 1).
• data collected from the complaints process that the organisation can understand its risks and issues, resource program areas appropriately and set its strategic direction (Principle 1)
• children and families need to know how to report concerns, and the complaints process should be written in a child-friendly way and be accessible to all children (Principles 2, 3 and 4).
• there should be a clear guidance on professional conduct, different peoples’ child safeguarding responsibilities, and a willingness for the organisation to learn from near misses and mistakes (Principles 9 and 10).

There are other National Principles and more granular details that support embedding and operationalising Principle 6. This illustrative example is designed to clarify that the National Principles all function interdependently to reduce the level of risk of child abuse occurring. Once of or more of these is undermined, the risk of child abuse occurring and not being responded to effectively rises significantly.

A child rights-based approach

The UNCRC and the National Principles were developed with the explicit intention of being underpinned by a child rights-based approach. A central principle of this is engaging with children in the design, implementation and evaluation of child safe materials. This engagement should be an ongoing process, as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that engagement “should not only be a momentary act, but the starting point for an intense exchange between children and adults on the development of policies, programmes and measures in all relevant contexts of children’s lives.” [1]

Ultimately, successful child safe organisation can be assessed by what children have to say about the organisation and if they are, as the National Principles intended, “safe, happy and engaged”. Children should be able to make positive comments about their environment and their future, know how to look after themselves and what to do if they feel unsafe. This focus on children’s wants and needs is an important lens that successful child-focused organisations use to drive continuous improvement in their organisation.

[1] General Comment No. 12 (2009): The right of the child to be heard, [13].