RTOs - child safety and wellbeing | Victorian Government

About the Standard

This Standard creates a child safe culture at all organisational levels by emphasising:

An RTO must be able to provide evidence of:

the RTO's public commitment to child safety
governance arrangements that implement child safety policies and procedures and reporting requirements
strategies to manage risks to the safety and welfare of children
a Child Safety Code of Conduct that specifies acceptable and unacceptable behavioural standards
a Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
staff and volunteers' professional development and, or induction that includes:
- child safety information sharing
- recordkeeping requirements.

An RTO complying with this Standard may have:

website publication of the RTO’s Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Child Safety Code of Conduct
a Child Safety Code of Conduct that specifies acceptable and unacceptable behavioural standards and applies to staff, volunteers and students
documented governance frameworks to implement child safe policies, procedures and reporting requirements
a risk register to identify, prevent and reduce risks to child safety
recruitment and induction resources and processes that cover the Child Safe Standards
professional development for staff and volunteers that covers information sharing and recordkeeping obligations.

In complying with Child Safe Standard 2, an organisation must, at a minimum, ensure:
- the organisation makes a public commitment to child safety
- a child safe culture is championed and modelled at all levels of the organisation from the top down and bottom up
- governance arrangements facilitate implementation of the Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy at all levels
- a Code of Conduct provides guidelines for staff and volunteers on expected behavioural standards and responsibilities
- risk management strategies focus on preventing, identifying and mitigating risks to children and young people
- staff and volunteers understand their obligations on information sharing and record keeping.
- The Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) — provides tools to guide and support the implementation of this Standard including ‘Creating a Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy’ and ‘Steps to develop or update your Code of Conduct’.
- The New South Wales Office of the Children's Guardian's Codes of Conduct: a guide to developing child safe Codes of Conduct provides extensive advice on developing a Child Safety Code of Conduct.

Reviewed 24 June 2022