Child Safe Standards

Victorian organisations that provide services or facilities to children, such as City of Whittlesea, are legally required to implement Child Safe Standards to protect children from harm and ensure safety in all settings.

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

The Child Safe Standards set out 11 standards that aim to create and maintain child safe environments. We are required to implement and comply with these standards.

Child Safe Standards aims

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.

How the Child Safe Standards work

The Child Safe Standards work by:

driving changes in organisational culture and 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.

Vulnerable communities

Although all children are vulnerable, some children face greater risk.

The standards provide three overarching principles that organisations must consider. These are:

the cultural safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds
the safety of children with disability.