Child Safe Standards

About the Child Safe Standards

Victorian organisations that provide services or facilities to children, such as City of Whittlesea, are required by law to implement Child Safe Standards in order to protect children from harm.

The Standards were established by the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005. The Standards address sexual, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse, as well as serious neglect, of children under the age of 18 years.

The Child Safe Standards are a set of 11 standards that aim to create and maintain child safe environments. Council is required to implement and comply with these Standards.

The Child Safe Standards aim to:

• promote the safety of children
• prevent child abuse
• ensure organisations and businesses have effective processes in place to respond to and report all allegations of child abuse.

The Child Safe Standards work by:

• driving changes in organisational culture – embedding child safety in everyday thinking and practice
• providing a minimum standard of child safety across all organisations
• highlighting that we all have a role to keep children safe from abuse.

Although all children are vulnerable, some children face additional vulnerabilities. The standards provide three overarching principles that organisations must consider:

• the cultural safety of Aboriginal Children
• the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds
• the safety of children with a disability.

The organisation overseeing the implementation and compliance with the Child Safe Standards is the Commission for Children and Young People. 

The City of Whittlesea recently consulted with local children on what makes them feel safe and what they can do if they feel unsafe. Watch what we found out below: