Child Safe Standard 8

At St. Mary’s, creating a child-safe environment is a shared responsibility. Child Safe Standard 8 focuses on ensuring that staff and volunteers understand their responsibilities for keeping children safe and are supported to recognise, respond to and prevent harm.

All staff and volunteers at our school play an important role in creating an environment where every child feels safe, respected, valued and heard. This includes:

• Understanding their responsibilities for child safety and wellbeing.
• Knowing how to identify and respond to concerns about the safety or wellbeing of a child.
• Following our school’s child safety policies, procedures and expectations.
• Maintaining professional and respectful relationships with students.
• Creating an environment where children feel comfortable speaking up and asking for help.
• Working together to ensure concerns are taken seriously and responded to appropriately.

At St. Mary’s, we regularly provide staff with opportunities to build their knowledge and confidence in child safety through training, professional learning and ongoing conversations. Our staff are expected to understand the importance of listening to children, responding to concerns and taking appropriate action when a child may be at risk of harm.

We also recognise that child safety is everyone’s responsibility. Families can support this work by talking with children about what it means to feel safe, who they can talk to when something is worrying them, and the importance of speaking up when they need help.

Together, through strong relationships, open communication and a shared commitment to child safety, we can help ensure that every child at St. Mary’s feels safe, supported and empowered to speak up.

Protecting children is everyone’s business.