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eSafety has teamed up with the Alannah & Madeline Foundation and the Australian Federal Police to produce a collection of play-based online safety activities, called Playing IT Safe.

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Safeguarding Children in Organisations: Online Training - Australian Childhood Foundation Professionals

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Ensure your organisation has a culture of safeguarding children and young people.

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A short animation to teach younger children protective behaviours when they’re playing sport.

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short 4 minute video about safe champions

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short 4 minute video about safe champions

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Mandu joins the SAFE Series champions Sam, Andy, Fiona and Eve.

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eSafety Professional Learning Modules are unique professional learning opportunities developed by the eSafety Commissioner and Early Childhood Australia.

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Early childhood services - child safety in physical and online environments

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Early childhood services - child safety in physical and online environments

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Guidance on Child Safe Standard 9: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children to be harme

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Overview

This standard requires services to make a cultural shift and consider child abuse in all risk assessments and planning.

Standard 9 focuses on:

child safety and wellbeing in physical and online environments

ensuring that arrangements for purchasing services from third parties maintain child safety

Services must analyse and understand potential risks to children, including risks created by:

physical and online environments

incursions

excursions

regular transportation

works or renovations at the premises

Services must address online behaviour in their Child Safe Environment Policy and other service policies.

The risks at Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) or vacation care services are quite different to risks at services for children under school due to:

children's ages and developmental stages

the location of these services.

Many OSHC services operate from premises that aren't built to meet early childhood regulatory requirements. In these cases, supervision is more difficult.

Services approved under the National Quality Framework (NQF):

long day care

family day care

kindergartens (preschool)

Outside School Hours Care (OSHC)

school holiday programs that operate for 28 days or more per year.

Services approved under the Children's Services Act (CS Act):

limited hours

occasional care

school holiday programs that operate for less than 28 days per year

early childhood intervention services

former Budget Based Funded services

mobile services.

Actions services must take to comply with Standard 9

Standard 9: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children to be harmed.

Early childhood services must comply with all the following elements of this standard:

Staff and volunteers identify and mitigate risks in the online and physical environments without compromising a child's right to privacy, access to information, social connections and learning opportunities (9.1).

The online environment is used in accordance with the service's Code of Conduct and Child Safe Environment Policy and practices (9.2).

Risk management plans consider risks posed by service settings, activities, and the physical environment (9.3).

Services that contract facilities and services from third parties have procurement policies that ensure the safety of children and young people (9.4).

Adequate supervision of children of all ages is essential. Your service needs to meet the required educator-to-child ratios.

Supervision is more challenging for OSHC services. Many premises are not purpose-built for early childhood services.

Be aware of risks posed by dark spaces, stairwells, private spaces, corners, and vehicles. Develop strategies to address these risks. This is important for services operating on school grounds.

Inform children about off-limit spaces, including out-of-bounds areas, storerooms and staff rooms.

Limit activities where one person is alone with a child or children.

Keep records of any intervention orders and court orders about access. Communicate to staff the names of people authorised to collect children in these circumstances. This information must be kept in the child's enrolment record.

Use observation aids such as observation windows, concave mirrors, and CCTV. Consider the balance between appropriate visibility and respecting staff and students' privacy.

Improve lighting in poorly lit areas.

Let children know how to raise concerns and where to go if they need help.

Organise professional learning on risk, harm prevention and hazard awareness.

Review incidents against policies and procedures. Where appropriate, ask children how incidents were handled and how safe they felt. Then make improvements as needed. This may only be appropriate for school-aged children.

For school aged children attending early childhood services (OSHC, vacation care).

Inform children about online safety risks if age-appropriate, including:

cyberbullying and trolling

invasion of privacy or digital surveillance

inappropriate sharing of images

phishing, harvesting of personal information or data theft

identity theft

malevolent software (malware)

offensive images and messages

age-inappropriate online content

impersonation/catfishing

grooming.

Outline acceptable use of personal devices for school aged children.

Prohibit the use of student email addresses to sign up to unauthorised third-party services. Communicate this expectation to children, families and the service community.

Use filtering software on service-based devices.

Encourage families to use parental controls on personal devices.

Regularly discuss online safety with staff, volunteers, families and children.

Tell children how to seek help from a trusted adult if they are exposed to inappropriate imagery or content that upsets them.

Monitor online activity. Respond to breaches of the online policies and procedures with appropriate consequences.

Carefully check contractor's child safety when engaging third parties; request valid Working with ChildrenClearances. A new contractor presents new risks.

Give contractors the Code of Conduct and Child Safe Environment Policy.

Make child safety a feature in legal contracts. The Victorian Government Common Funding Agreement has this as a standard.

Conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment for any software that handles children's and families' personal information.

Collect compliance information

Nominate a staff member to collect child safety compliance information about contractors when they enter the service.

Ask contractors to give their Working with Children Clearance when they enter the service.

Keep records of processes for checking contractors.

Require evidence of Child Safe Standards compliance when establishing contracts for services to children.

Contractors on the premises

Properly supervise contractors at all times when they are on service premises when children are attending. Unauthorised people must not remain at a service unless a staff member directly supervises them.

If a contractor does not comply with the Child Safe Standards:

cease all activities with the contractor until the issue is resolved

if appropriate, inform the contractor of the non-compliance and provide an opportunity to rectify the problem

if the issue is serious, contact the relevant authorities.

Early childhood services have extensive obligations under the National Law and CS Act and associated Regulations.

Services must already:

protect the safety, health and wellbeing of children attending the service

take every reasonable precaution to protect children from harm and any hazard likely to cause injury

adequately supervise children of all ages

conduct risk assessments and create management plans

ensure unauthorised persons do not remain at a service unless they are directly supervised by a staff member

only allow children to leave the premises when:

collected by a parent

collected by an authorised person named in the enrolment record

written authorisation is provided.

The National Law and Regulations requires services to conduct risk assessments in situations including:

Transportation

Excursions and regular outings

Emergency and evacuation procedures

Transportation

Children are at increased risk during single trips or regular transportation. Carefully plan transportation to make sure no children are left in vehicles, especially at transition points.

Services must have policies and procedures for excursions, regular outings and transportation. All staff and volunteers must follow them.

For transportation provided or arranged by the service, you must:

conduct a detailed risk assessment

get written authorisation from parents for the child to be transported.

The risk assessment and written authorisation must be completed once every 12 months for regular outings and transportation that are substantially the same.

ACECQA's downloadable templates and information:

Excursions

Excursions present additional risks. Services must have an excursion policy.

For each excursion you must:

complete a detailed risk assessment

manage transport

get written authorisation from parents.

Emergency and evacuation procedure

Services must:

1. conduct a risk assessment to identify relevant potential emergencies

2. prepare emergency and evacuation procedures.

Resources

Comprehensive guidance on child protection in early childhood, including Mandatory Reporting online training:

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Early childhood services - child safety in physical and online environments | Victorian Government

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This standard requires services to make a cultural shift and consider child abuse in all risk assessments and planning.

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Child friendly resources- from Sue @ Chiltern

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Child friendly resources- from Sue @ Chiltern

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Child friendly story that assists families to support their child’s safety understanding  in relation to using tablets and phones

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Swoosh, Glide and Rule Number 5 | eSafety Commissioner

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An online safety picture book for young children that can be read online or downloaded to your device.

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This booklet for families offers practical advice and strategies for parents and carers, to help them tackle the key online safety issues for children from birth to 5 years old.

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eSafety checklist for early learning services

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eSafety checklist for early learning services

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Early Years Teaching poster - Make good choices A3

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Early Years Teaching poster - Ask for help A3

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Early Years Teaching poster - Be safe A3

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Early Years Teaching poster - Be kind A3

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This policy applies to the approved provider, persons with management or control, nominated supervisor, persons in day-to-day charge, early childhood teachers, educators, staff, students, volunteers, parents/guardians, children, and others attending the programs and activities of NERPSA including during offsite excursions and activities.

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This policy applies to the approved provider, persons with management or control, nominated supervisor, persons in day-to-day charge, early childhood teachers, educators, staff, students, volunteers, parents/guardians, children and others attending the programs and activities of NERPSA, including during offsite excursions and activities.

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Excursion template - now with CSS considerations

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Excursion template - now with CSS considerations

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Template Excursion Risk Assessment and Management Template.2024 (1)

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eSafety partnered with these organisations to develop these pages and resources for mob.

eSafety also thanks the staff and students of Fitzroy Valley District School for their input into the development of these resources.

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Explore our online safety resources for First Nations people and hear stories from mob in language to help you be deadly online

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Find the latest information to help you manage online safety issues.

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Risk  Assessment and Management Templates

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Risk  Assessment and Management Templates

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Commission for Children and Young People Victoria