Child Safety Update: Our Ongoing Commitment and Reforms

Dear Families,

This post is in answer to some questions about our handling of child safety and what measures we’ve taken to strengthen and reinforce it over recent times.
Most of this has been communicated via Storypark over time as it was implemented, but this post condenses everything into one place here so it’s easier to digest.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of everything we do, but rather, it’s a list of things that we have added in response to recent child safety reforms from the government, as well as our own initiatives to strengthen our systems, procedures and culture of reporting and accountability.

Firstly, the responses to Government reform include:

• New Government provided online child safety training is mandatory for everybody working or volunteering in an early childhood education and care (ECEC) service. All of our Educators have been supported to complete the training already.
• In addition to qualification requirements, all educators complete annual refresher training related to child protection and mandatory reporting obligations. These are nationally recognised units delivered through external providers.
• Following the introduction of the voluntary National Model Code for Taking Images or Videos of Children in Early Childhood Education and Care, we have implemented these best practice recommendations across our Centres while broader legislative reforms continue to be considered. Personal mobile phones (already banned previously), tablets, smart watches, smart glasses, and other wearable technology are not permitted to be used or carried by educators while directly working with children or within children’s play spaces.
• Regular visitors including therapists are not permitted to use personal devices in children’s spaces and have signed agreements pertaining to this.
• We have regular compliance visits from the Department to ensure that we are meeting our regulatory obligations in compliance, staffing qualifications, ratio, reporting etc. The Head Office and internal audits also assist in ensuring compliance and children’s safety.

In terms of measures that we have implemented off our own bat, the following have been introduced progressively over the last twelve months or so, to support children, families and Educators and strengthen our systems:

• Retirement of Centre phones. We used to keep one company phone (no SIM) for photography purposes, because of higher quality – but without any smaller devices around the children at all there is never an acceptable context for a concealed or smaller sized device.
• Male Educators stood down from toileting and bathroom duties, unless you have given written consent. Philosophically this doesn’t always sit well, but for now, and the foreseeable future, we have our males on stand down from bathroom and toileting since last year.
• We have continued to strengthen the skill and understanding of dynamic supervision with our Educators through our team meetings, review of supervision plans and discussion around ‘hot spots’ requiring higher supervision within our environments. Our Leadership team has also implemented a Supervision Audit tool that is completed monthly to capture and assess Supervision in the moment to support in guiding practice.

Introduction of mandatory Child Safety focus topic at Staff Meetings
Each month, all services participate in a structured staff meeting presentation developed by our Approved Provider Melissa Scaife. These meetings include a dedicated agenda item focused on “Child Safety and Protection” to ensure consistent messaging and ongoing professional reflection. Educators sign to acknowledge their participation in this training each month.

New Children’s Safety Education programs/resources
We created our “Be Safe” and “Bonnie and Baxter” safety programs with children. These programs have been developed using resources informed by the Office of the Children’s Guardian and support children to develop an understanding of personal safety, protective behaviours and being the boss of their own bodies. Children’s voices and learning are documented through discussions, mind maps and learning experiences within the classrooms. (much more information on these available on request).

Fine-tuned social media practices
We have changed our social media practices to ensure that posts are less “marketing” and focus on learning and experiences while minimising the exposure of identifiable images of children. Family consent is obtained for all images used on our platforms.

Increased security of service devices
We implemented new software to monitor all service devices (laptops and tablets), purge images, limit software installation and maintain a service device register. Use of non-company devices in our Centres or network is strictly prohibited.

Stronger recruitment and induction processes:

• Our recruitment processes have been further strengthened, all Educators are recruited directly through our internal processes and agency staffing services are never used. (this is not new but important to note – we haven’t used agency “fill in” staff since 2005.)
• Our induction process includes education around child safety policies, reporting obligations, educator conduct and safeguarding practices. Follow-up inductions are completed by Head Office representatives and include practical demonstrations related to nappy changing, bottle preparation, safe sleep and child safety expectations.

New Educator commencement requirements:

Prior to commencing employment, Educators are required to acknowledge and sign documents including:

• Statement of Commitment to Child Safety
• Educator Code of Conduct
• Service Device Agreement

Ongoing Educator training and accountability
Educators are allocated policies each month to review and complete a knowledge quiz on our Learning Management System. In addition, Management (Melissa & Tammy our Head of Practice) facilitate monthly Tuesday evening training sessions where policies and procedures are discussed using practical scenarios to strengthen educator understanding and reflective practice. The most recent training session, focused on active and dynamic supervision practices, including effectively supervising “hot spot” areas within the environment and their understanding of the Child protection reporting process.

Child Safe Officers and further encouragement of reporting culture
Some months ago we established a new [email protected] email address and appointed two of our senior managers (Rachel & Tammy) as Child Safe Officers. We actively encourage a strong reporting culture, and Educators (and families) are encouraged to report concerns or seek guidance, where discretion and even anonymity can be requested.
All concerns are appropriately reviewed and investigated, with supports provided where required. Educators receive ongoing training regarding reporting processes, and child safety flowcharts and procedures are displayed within staff areas for easy access.

Management Professional Learning
Our Management Team regularly attends webinars, professional development sessions, and industry updates delivered by the Early Learning Commission and external agencies to remain informed about current child safety reforms and best practice expectations.

Compliance and Reflective Practice
Management teams participate in regular compliance and quality meetings to reflect on practices, strengthen service culture, and ensure ongoing alignment with child safe standards and regulatory expectations.

External Child Safety Support
We invited families and educators to attend a live session with a former Child Abuse Detective, Child Abuse Educator, Author and Advocate Kristi McVee in September 2025 at our Rouse Hill Centre. It was excellent and a recording of this session remains available for families who wish to access it.

In terms of future plans that are in train, we intend to be more visible with our focus on best practice in child safety and compliance in our Centres, so that you are reminded that it’s always at the forefront for us, not just sometimes. From last month, in addition to our regular newsletters, you can expect regular monthly “BE SAFE BULLETIN” updates from our Head of Compliance to parents via this portal, discussing things like what our mandatory Focus Topic is for the month for Educators, and other information. There are two issues currently.

As stated this is not an exhaustive list of all practices but as you can hopefully see, we have taken our obligations to your children and you as families, seriously, in the areas of child safety and compliance, and have tried to strengthen it wherever we can. Please always feel free to talk to your room Educators or myself about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, as visibility, understanding and ACTUAL DELIVERY is super-important. We also value your input for opportunities to collaborate with our parent community and improve even further.