Girls’ Brigade Australia takes child safety seriously. We have a wide range of policies and procedures aimed at reducing and removing the risk of child abuse and harm to girls who engage in our program, and policies and procedures that promote child wellbeing.
Identifying and mitigating child safety-related risks is a core component of being a child safe organisation, which GBA stives to be.
Our strategy has the following requirements:
A Statement of commitment to Child Safety and Wellbeing.
A Code of conduct which is signed annually byt all staff and volunteers.
A process of recruitment, selection, training and management of volunteers and staff who work for GBA across the states and territories.
Reporting disclosures and suspicions of harm, and managing breaches.
Completing risk management plans for all activities; high and low risk.
Managing compliance with National Working with Children/Vulnerable People checks
Communication and support for staff and volunteers through a variety of mediums.
Identifying and mitigating child safety-related risks is a core component of being a child safe organisation. GBA company/group leaders are required to undertake risk assessments annually in relation to activities of company/group, to identify the level of responsibility for, and contact with, children and young people, evaluate risks to child safety, and put in place appropriate strategies to manage identified risks.
GBA has invested in Child Safety through its annual subscriptions to Safety Management Online (SMO), and Operoo to ensure a consistent approach to safety management around Australia.
Child safety risks come in many forms, including environmental, operational and cultural risks. The level and type of risk varies across each company/gropu/region/state and can change over time. Annually reviewing child safety risks is important to GBA to promote a culture of continuous improvement and to identify new risks and support ongoing, appropriate management of existing child safety risks
Not only is writing a risk assessment important, but it is also important to ensure that the outcomes of a risk assessment are acted upon so that when areas for improvement are identified, effective changes are implemented in a timely manner.
Safety is one or our core values – you can read about them all here.
All of these are embeded in our vision to see “girls lives transformed and God’s world enriched.”
You can access our Child Safety policy below.
Child_Safety_Policy
Code of Conduct
Visitors Code of Conduct