Supporting Your Members

The Standards apply to all sporting organisations that operate and provide sporting services to children within Victoria. For SSAs and RSAs, this also means identifying how you can best support your members to ensure they are meeting the Standards and developing a child safe culture within their club.

SSAs and RSAs are strongly encouraged to take reasonable steps to assist and support members through the implementation process.

Focus on your own organisation first

Many SSAs and RSAs will have policies and procedures in place that may address areas of the Child Safe Standards, however you cannot rely on this alone. A review and update of your own practices will assist you in understanding the requirements of the Chid Safe Standards so that you can assist your members more effectively.

Helpful Resources:

DOWNLOAD: Getting Started - Steps to Take

Communicate to your members:

Don’t wait to communicate with your members. It’s just as important that your members are aware of and taking steps to meet the Standards as it is for your organisation. After all, this is a legal requirement for all sporting organisations providing services and facilities to children in Victoria. Vicsport encourages you to contact your membership through as many means possible including:

• Newsletters & Magazines
• Website
• Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.)
• Personal meetings
• Presentations and conferences

During these communications, you should clearly outline:

• What the standards are
• Why they are in place
• What your organisation is doing to address them
• How you will assist your members

Helpful resources:

DOWNLOAD: About the Standards

DOWNLOAD: Steps to Take

DOWNLOAD: What A Child Safe Club Looks Like

DOWNLOAD: Child Safe Conversations with Clubs and Associations

LINK: Information for Clubs, Leagues and Associations

Tips to help your members

Standard 1: Strategies to embed an organisational culture of child safety, including through effective leadership arrangements

This Means:

Leading from the top down and embedding a culture that makes child safety everyone's business by:

• Protecting the interests of the child, not the organisation
• Making child safety a top priority within the organisation
• Taking a zero tolerance approach to child abuse and to racial, religious or cultural discrimination
• Establishing values, behavioural expectations and recruitment practices that are consistent with a child centred, child safe culture

You can support your members by:

• Providing clear, sport relevant examples of what you have done
• Develop and promote case studies of what is happening within your sport
• Utilise upcoming conferences and training days to present to your members about the Standards
• Congratulate members who are taking steps to address the Standards via presentations, emails and your website

Standard 2: A child safe policy or statement of commitment to child safety

This Means:

Creating a strong foundation for a child safe environment by:

• Documenting how to meet your duty of care responsibilities to children
• Affirming a commitment to child safety and the best interests of children
• Making a commitment to child safety clear to people in your organisation, children and families and the community

You can support your members by:

• Providing an outline of the policy development process you have undertaken
• Providing access to a sport specific policy template or the Vicsport Club Policy Template
• Providing a contact person/people to assist with their enquiries and activities
• Promote a “policy of the month” via your newsletters, social media and communication channels

Standard 3: A code of conduct that establishes clear expectations for appropriate behaviour with children

This Means:

Setting clear expectations for appropriate behaviour with children by:

• Providing written guidance on appropriate conduct and behaviour towards children
• Detailing acceptable and unacceptable behaviours in situations as they relate to your organisation. For example, physical contact, personal care, online communication, staff to child ratios and camps
• Educating staff, volunteers, parents and children about the required standards of behaviour and what will happen if a person does not comply

You can support your members by:

• Providing an outline of the process to develop a code of conduct
• Providing access to a sport specific code of conduct or the Vicsport Code of Conduct that they can adopt
• Providing a contact person/people to assist with their enquiries and activities
• Providing written guidance on appropriate conduct and behaviour towards children
• Detailing acceptable and unacceptable behaviours in situations as they relate to your organisation. For example physical contact, personal care, online communication, staff to child ratios and camps.
• Educating staff, volunteers, parents and children about the required standards of behaviour and what will happen if a person does not comply. This may be done at:
  • Team meetings
  • Induction nights
  • Registration days (or as part of an online registration process)

Standard 4: Screening, supervision, training and other human resources practices that reduce the risk of child abuse by new and existing personnel

This Means:

Effectively screening and training people in your organisation to reduce the risk of child abuse by:

• Engaging only the most suitable people (whether in a paid or voluntary capacity) to work with children
• Having robust pre-employment screening processes and background checking
• Creating clear job descriptions and duty statements
• Understanding the nature and signs of child abuse
• Providing high quality supervision and professional development

You can support your members by:

• Providing template role descriptions for key club personnel. The Club Help website has some great templates to assist with this.
• Provide access to online training for staff and volunteers. The Play By The Rules website can assist with this
• Distribute a list of easy to ask questions to utilise in interviews and “meet and greet” sessions such as:
  • Why do you want to be involved in our sport?
  • Have you worked with children before?
  • Have you had a situation where you have had to comfort a distressed child? How did you manage this? What was the outcome?
• Embed a child safe module in coaching and officiating training
• Discuss child safe scenarios at team and staff meetings so that all staff are able to support members with their enquiries
• Utilise upcoming conferences and training day to present to your members about the Child Safe Standards

Standard 5: Processes for responding to and reporting suspected child abuse

This Means:

Putting in place clear procedures for responding to and reporting child safety concerns or child abuse so:

• Procedures for raising concerns and complaints are clear and can be understood by children and adults alike
• Children know who to talk to if they are worried, and are encouraged to report unsafe behaviours
• People within the organisation are aware of their duty of care and legal responsibilities, and know what to do to respond appropriately
• Concerns and complaints are acted upon appropriately

You can support your members by:

• Distribute updated Member Protection Policies
• Develop and distribute easy to follow information about who to contact if there are concerns
• Provide access to easy to use reporting documents
• Provide access to online training for staff and volunteers. The Play By The Rules website can assist with this
• Have a central point of contact within your organisation to assist with enquiries and complaints. This may be your current MPIO or a designated Child Safe Officer.

Standard 6: Strategies to identify and reduce or remove risks of child abuse

This Means:

• Identifying potential for harm and proactively planning to prevent, reduce or remove the risk of child abuse
• Having a clear understanding of the vulnerabilities of the organisation (and the specific activities provided) and the potential risks this may pose to children
• Being proactive to reduce the likelihood of risks emerging or escalating
• Adopting a risk management approach and developing a risk management plan.

You can support your members by:

• Providing a risk matrix template and process
• Highlighting how your organisation is meeting risks and passing on key learnings
• Address risk management as a broad concept at upcoming conferences – embed Child Safety in the message

Standard 7: Strategies to promote the participation and empowerment of children.

This Means:

• Supporting children and young people to understand their rights, contribute to child safety planning and to raise concerns by:
  • Valuing and respecting children’s opinions
  • Encouraging children’s participation in decision making
  • Establishing an environment of trust and inclusion that enables children to ask questions and speak up if they are worried or feeling unsafe.

You can support your members by:

• Developing a “junior advisory group” to provide input and feedback to strengthen your sport
• Provide child appropriate posters for display at club-rooms and facilities (i.e. Vicsport Child Safe Posters)
• Develop and promote case studies of what is happening within your sport

DOWNLOAD: Supporting Your Members

This information was developed utilising and adapting content from:

State Government of Victoria, Department of Health & Human Services (2015) An overview of the Victorian child safe standards Commission for Children and Young People (2015), A guide for creating a child safe organisation 2.0[/collapse]