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.
WTW and the Australian Childhood Foundation have produced valuable insights into the importance of safeguarding standards
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:
Key components of effective safeguarding in Educational settings
67% of schools currently have a dedicated committee focused on safeguarding children and young people.
32% of schools identifying they did not adhere to screening in accordance with relevant government legislation.
26% of schools do not provide information sessions for the school community to promote safeguarding awareness
How WTW are helping to improve upon safeguarding compliance and culture
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.
The following benefits are available exclusively to WTW client schools in safeguarding your school*
- Probitas are offering a 5% premium deduction to any school commencing the Foundation’s Accreditation Program, which increases to 10% upon successful completion of the Accreditation Certificate, and
- The Foundation provides WTW schools a 5% discount on their program fee upon joining the Safeguarding Children Accreditation Program.
Disclaimer
*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
Footnotes
- WTW Child Safe Questionnaire for Independent Schools 2023 Return to article
