Everyone working with children in NSW shares the responsibility for their care.

The Child Safe Standards recommended by the Royal Commission provide a framework for making organisations safer for children.

Definition of a child safe Environment: Child Safe organisations create cultures, adopt strategies and act to prevent harm to children including sexual abuse.

Aim: To ensure that all children in care and staff on premises are protected from the any risks within the centre. We as a centre will aim to regularly review and maintain the highest level of a child safe standards using “A guide to the child safe standards” as guide to help in this process.

Standard 1: Child safety is embedded in organisational leadership. Governance and culture.

“Strong leadership, with a culture of transparency and accountability, can deter people who want to harm children”

• Through increased communication, reflections and accountability through face to face, emails, OWNA online 24/7, group/room and staff meetings and our Directors on the premises daily, we as leaders can embed child safety into Gumnuts

  culture.

• Child Safety will be prioritised and monitored via our strong leadership team – Owners/directors, Nominated Supervisor,

  Responsible person and Educational Leaders.

• Leadership extends to all staff as we share the responsibility for keeping children safe.

• We will support and maintain a culture where children’s rights and safety are prioritised.

• Clear rules, policies procedures around child safety will be put in place and monitored daily by our leadership team.

• Our leadership team will role model our commitment to child safety

• Child Safety Training and education will be prioritised annually via staff meeting agendas for all staff to understand their

  obligations in reporting

• Risk management plans will focus on identifying, preventing and lowering risk for children.

• Child Safety Promotion via Websites and useful documents are shared with all staff and families via OWNA

• Child Safe Code of Conduct will be signed by all staff upon employment, during Orientation, and reviewed annually.

  Standard 2: Children participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously

• Gumnuts creates child-safe policies that “promote children’s empowerment and participation”

• Gumnut educators have 24/7 access to OWNA note sharing with each other within a child’s profile. These can be notes of conversations that child has had with an educator to make sure their concerns are taken seriously and shared with the wider

  team.

• Gumnuts actively seeks the opinions of children and encourages and support them to regularly contribute to decisions that

  affect them through our planning, programming and routines. When doing so we consider their age, development, maturity

  and understanding.

• Children are encouraged to speak up and are believed

• Children are given the skills to understand their feelings so they can describe them to adults, through various individual

  and group games across all age groups.

• Staff revise and refresh child-protection training every 18 months to be attuned to signs of harm and facilitate child friendly

  way to communicate.

• Brochures and website are accessible to give information regarding support services for children through OWNA

  Standard 3: Families and communities are informed and involved

• Gumnuts actively engages with families and communities to support children.

• Gumnuts, as a child safe organisation “talks to, consults with and invites the participation of families, caregivers and the

  broader community to promote the rights of children”. This is achieved through OWNA access for Custom forms, Parent

  feedback, Helpful links, useful documents and centre information, along with handover details from families daily.

• All families have 24/7 access via OWNA to find all Gumnuts policies and procedures, and to offer feedback and

  suggestions.

• All families and communities are invited to send through ideas, support, complaints and opinions through email, social

  media and our app. Management on the premises daily for face to face communication for complaints and incident

  notifications.

• Code of Conducts are accessible to parents via OWNA app, useful documents.

• We aim for children to feel that their family is welcome at Gumnuts and that staff at Gumnuts talk to their family about

  them.

• Special days and events of the different cultures in our community are celebrated through cultural months, and events and

  meals.

Standard 4: Equity is upheld and diverse needs are taken into account

• “Children are provided opportunities to participate to their full potential” across all aspects of our program and planning.

• Individual portfolios and planning on each child support our view of the child as an individual instead of as part of a

  collective.

• Routines and practices are adapted to meet the individual needs of each child

• Child Safe and Child Protection policies describe how we respond to children with Vulnerabilities and manage these

  situations.

• All staff are given information, through the hand book & meetings, to identify factors that increase a child’s vulnerability

  to harm.

• Diversity and Inclusion planning is documented through our policies.

• A variety of events are held annually that demonstrate diversity and inclusion.

• Positive discussion about diversity and inclusion are encouraged and supported through everyday conversations and

  planned experiences and resources.

• We demonstrate equity to family diversity and diverse family structures through our rooms. I.e. posters, books, discussions

  policies etc

  Standard 5: People working with children are suitable and supported

• Management/Owners leads all aspects of recruitment, including phone calls, interviews, reference checks, paper work and trials.

• Gumnuts, as a child safe organisation, has policies and procedures that describe how we recruit and support staff to keep children safe.

• Our job advertisements and interview questions refer to our “Statement of commitment to child safety” and highlight how we value child safety.

• We have developed Child Safe recruitment practices which are documented in our policy.

• Management guide new staff through orientation, handbooks and policy review and supervise their orientation to support

  the new employee to keep children safe.

• All staff who are employed at Gumnuts have a working with Children Check clearance, which is lodged in OWNA.

• All staff who work each day, sign in and out of the centre, and in and out of specific rooms, through the OWNA app. All

  this information is then stored in the OWNA software.

• All leaders and supervisors at Gumnuts have completed Child Protection training: Identify and respond to children and

  young people at risk, and updated their child protection training every 18 months. These documents are stored in the OWNA app.

  Standard 6: Processes to respond to complaints of child abuse are child focused

  Children are “the priority when responding to complaints of abuse”

• All staff at Gumnuts are mandatory reporters and are aware of their responsibilities and how to report child protection concerns.

• Directors on the premises daily, ensure that complaints are handled as soon as possible, within 24 hours.

• Staff and families have 24 hours access to all child protection policies and useful websites to assist with child protection

  issues.

• Complaints handling and investigations of complaints is through owners/Directors, via OWNA app, email or phone call

  on the day of the complaint. Child Protection concerns will be responded to by Owners/Directors immediately.

• Staff revise and refresh child-protection training every 18 months to be attuned to signs of harm, reporting

  responsibilities and how to facilitate child friendly way to communicate.

• Breaches of code of conduct will result in disciplinary action.

• Staff sign a Child Safe Standards code of conduct upon employment that clearly describes appropriate and inappropriate

  behaviour and expectation about adult interactions with children.

• Visuals are displayed throughout the rooms detailing steps for children to take to make a compliant or to voice their opinion

  or concerns.

  Standard 7: Staff are equipped with the knowledge, skills and awareness to keep children safe through continual education and training

• Gumnuts invest in building staff skills, abilities and confidence through ongoing training.

• OWNA access for management and leaders to have direct access to all staff qualifications and training records.

• Our child Protection Policy supports staff understanding of how to identify and respond to all forms of child abuse: physical

  abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and neglect.

• We are a “learning organisation” and will update our staff when new knowledge and practices to prevent harm and abuse

  emerge, through staff memos, child protection refresher courses and staff meetings.

• Comprehensive training through certificates and diploma training and refresher courses every 12-24 months for all staff.

• Staff orientation for permanent and relief staff are conducted and documented through OWNA, which includes child

protection policies and code of conduct signing.

• Gumnuts educators have access to child protection resources for education and training purposes and to be used directly with the children. These resources include: Safe Series books and posters, Keeping Kids Safe resources, and Bravehearts Resources.

Standard 8: Physical and online environments minimise the opportunity for abuse to occur

• Gumnuts will continually strive to identity and minimise “risks to children in physical and online environments”.

• Gumnuts utilises the OWNA app to monitor staff across rooms and ratios for children in our care in different rooms to help

  identify when a child may be at risk of harm.

• Gumnuts physical environment will always have a minimum of 2 staff on the premises at all times when children are

  attendance.

• While on a excursion or in the community no educator will be left to supervise a child alone.

• Staff are asked to sign and reflect annually, on the child safe code conduct, which highlights policies and procedures as to

  what is and what is not appropriate behaviour online and in the physical environment.

• Child Protection activities and awareness for the children in our program are communicated to parents through OWNA

  app – rooms programs, and rooms blogs, as well as through newsletters.

• All families are asked to provide permission for images of their child to be on our business social media pages, and used

  for promotional materials, upon their enrolment. Any parents who do not give permission, choices are respected and not

  shared.

• Children are always supervised when participating on Ipad apps, and these apps are selected and set up and locked in by

  the educators.

• iPads have passcodes for adult access only, and are screen locked once games/apps are chosen by the educators.

• Serious Incidents that occur at Kindy are reported within 24 hours to ACECQA and reviewed and followed up.

• Images for social Media post are only to be taken, and loaded from a business device, not via personal devices.

  Standard 9: Implementation of child Safe Standards is continuously reviewed and improved

• Child Safety Standards are continuously reviewed and improved with reminders set up in OWNA app, through collaboration boards items, entries in staff communication diary, and in meeting minutes.

• Our complaints handling forms on OWNA have a follow up section to note if policies or procedures need to be reviewed due to the complaint and how it was resolved. This ensures continuous improvement.

• In the evident of a critical incident, we would conduct a root cause analysis

• Meeting minutes document review and changes made to child safe policies and procedures.

• We place a review date on all child protection and child safe policies in OWNA “useful documents” to remind us to review

  them annually.

  Standard 10: Policies and procedures document how the organisations child safe

• All child safe policies and procedures are available via OWNA app 24/7 for all families and staff to access and view. They are also available to the community via our policy manual in the main foyer.

• Our child safe policies and procedures are reviewed annually to maintain relevance to our organisation and environment.

• Child Safe policy viewing and clarification, along with our child safe code of conduct, are part of our induction process.

• Child protection information is added to our letters of offer for new employees.

• Accessibility of policies and procedures within the OWNA app for educators, make these documents localised no matter

  where the educator is. The ease of communication with these polices means that they can be championed by our leaders,

  clearly communicated and understood by staff.

• All documentation is saved in accordance with the National Law and National regulations.

• Our child protection / safe policies include a Statement to Commitment to Child Safety.

• Documentation that shows we meet this standard include: Code of conduct, Our risk management plans, complaint handling

  procedures, recruitment policy, social media policy, WWCC policy, Inclusivity plan for supporting children with diverse needs.