Practice paper

Practice Paper for Child Family Community Australia, about children's participation in child-safe organisations.

Authors: Dr Tim Moore

Developed by Dr Tim Moore from the ACU Institute of Child Protection Studies, this Practice Paper provides practical guidance for organisations about how to involve children in child-safe organisations. It draws on the Children’s Safety Study, which considered children’s perceptions of safety, their safety needs and how well they believed adults and institutions protected them from harm. The paper also describes tools that can be used to talk to children and young people about their safety, and ways that adults and institutions can respond.

The Children’s Safety Study was conducted by the ACU Institute of Child Protection Studies, with colleagues from the Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University, and was commissioned by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The study aimed to develop an understanding of how children perceive safety and consider it within institutional contexts.

The study explored:

1. How children and young people conceptualise and perceive safety;
2. Children and young people’s views on what gives rise to these perceptions;
3. Children and young people’s perceptions of safety within institutions;
4. What children and young people consider is already being done to respond to safety issues and risks in institutions;
5. What children and young people consider should be done to respond to safety issues in institutions.

Dr Moore also delivered a webinar for Child Family Community Australia on the topic of ‘protection through participation’ (see related resources).

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