School a leader in child safety

A GEELONG school has established itself as a leader in developing a culture of youth safety by holding the region’s first child safe forum.

Geelong Baptist College hosted the Making Australia ChildSafe Roadshow session for staff and local community organisations yesterday.

National child harm prevention charity, ChildSafe, is touring Australia throughout 2018 to empower organisations, businesses, charities, and churches to improve their child safety systems after the release of the 10 child safe standards following the Royal Commission in Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

College principal Judy Sobey said the program would help teachers and staff to better understand their role in promoting a safe environment for all children.

“Safety is the right of every child, and we want to build that into our culture at Geelong Baptist College as an integral part of our values and beliefs,” Ms Sobey said.

“Students spend the greater part of their weekdays at school. As a school, we want to embed in our staff and community the need to ensure that our college is a safe community for our students.”

ChildSafe business director Neil Milton said the program helped staff learn how to best adopt the government child safety standards.

“When organisations care about children we want to make the effort and come and run something like this,” Mr Milton said.