Child Safe Environments South Australia
South Australia is guided by the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and requires organisations to comply with The Child Safe Environments Program which is overseen by the Department of Human Services in South Australia. South Australia has enacted the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017 (SA) to that provides a framework for organisations to develop a child safe environment for children and young people.
A summary of the South Australian child safety legislative landscape is outlined below:
- Legislation requires organisations to develop policies and procedures to ensure a child safe environment and to lodge a Compliance Statement with the Department of Human Services (SA) for their review and approval
- Currently South Australia has not enacted the National Principles into legislation, however the Department of Human Services (SA) requires the Compliance Statement to comply with the National Principles
- Organisations across South Australia that engage with children and young people should implement the National Principles to ensure that organisations are exercising best practice in child safety and mitigate risk of harm to children and young people
- South Australia has currently not implemented a Reportable Conduct Scheme
- Organisations across South Australia that engage with children and young people should ensure that they provide a child-focused and accessible complaints system so that the concerns about child abuse and harm can be properly reported and responded to by the organisation, including conducting thorough investigations of concerns.
Children and young people are inherently vulnerable to abuse and harm. Children have a right to feel safe and be safe in all environments. Exposing children and young people to abuse and harm may cause long-term trauma and impact their growth and development. Organisations must take active steps to comply with their duty of care to mitigate risk of harm.