Child Safety Policy

CHILD SAFETY POLICY

Musicians Making A Difference (MMAD)
December 2019

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE: CHILD SAFE POLICY

1.1 Purpose
Musicians Making A Difference want children and young people who participate in our programs to have a safe and happy experience. We support and respect our children, young people their families and our workers.

1.2 Definition of a child and young person
A child is anyone under the age of 16 years.
A young person is a person over 16 years but under 18 years.

POLICY INTENT AND TO WHOM IT APPLIES

Musicians Making A Difference is committed to child safety.

  • We want children and young people to be safe, happy and empowered. We support and respect all children and young people, as well as our staff and volunteers.

  • We are committed to the safety, participation and empowerment of all children and young people. We have zero tolerance of child abuse, and all allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously and consistently with our robust policies and procedures.

  • We have legal and moral obligations to contact authorities when we are worried about a child’s safety, which we follow rigorously.

  • Musicians Making a difference is committed to preventing child abuse and identifying risks early and removing and reducing these risks.

  • Musicians Making a Difference has robust human resources and recruitment practices for all staff and volunteers.

  • Musicians Making a Difference is committed to regularly training and educating our staff and volunteers on child abuse risks.

  • Musicians Making a Difference support and respect all children and young people, as well as our staff and volunteers. We are committed to the cultural safety of Aboriginal children, the cultural safety of children from a culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, and to providing a safe environment for children and young people with a disability.

  • We have specific policies, procedures and training in place that support our leadership team, staff and volunteers to achieve these commitments.

CHILDREN’S PARTICIPATION

How MMAD involve children and young people and get them to actively participate in our organisation:

This policy is intended to empower children and young people who are vital and active participants in our organisation. We involve them when making decisions, especially about matters that directly affect them. We listen to their views and respect what they have to say. We promote diversity and tolerance in our organisation, and people from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds are welcome.

In particular we:

  • promote the cultural safety, participation and empowerment of Aboriginal children and young people.

  • promote the cultural safety, participation and empowerment of children and young people from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds.

  • ensure that children and young people with a disability are safe and can participate equally.

RECRUITMENT

How MMAD select suitable workers to work with children:

  • Musicians Making a Difference take all reasonable steps to employ skilled people to work with children and young people. We develop selection criteria and advertisements which clearly demonstrate our commitment to child safety and an awareness of our social and legislative responsibilities. Musicians Making a Difference understands that when recruiting staff and volunteers we have ethical as well as legislative obligations.

  • We actively encourage applications from Aboriginal peoples, people from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds and people with a disability.

  • All people engaged in child and young people related work, including volunteers, are required to hold a Working with Children Check and to provide evidence of this.

  • We carry out reference checks and police record checks to ensure that we are recruiting the right people.

COMPLAINTS MANAGEMENT AND REPORTING

Department of Family and Community Services
NSW Ombudsman
Office of the Children’s Guardian

Musicians Making a Difference takes all allegations seriously and has practices in place to investigate thoroughly and quickly. Our staff and volunteers are trained to deal appropriately with allegations.

We work to ensure all children and young people, families, staff and volunteers know what to do and who to tell if they observe abuse or are a victim, and if they notice inappropriate behaviour.

We all have a responsibility to report an allegation of abuse if we have a reasonable belief that an incident took place.

If an adult has a reasonable belief that an incident has occurred, then they must report the incident.

Factors contributing to reasonable belief may be:

  • a child states they or someone they know has been abused (noting that sometimes the child may in fact be referring to themselves).

  • behaviour consistent with that of an abuse victim is observed.

  • someone else has raised a suspicion of abuse but is unwilling to report it.

  • observing suspicious behaviour.

TRAINING, SUPPORT AND SUPERVISION OF WORKERS

Training and education are important to ensure that everyone in Musicians Making a Difference understands that child safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Musicians Making a Difference organisational culture aims for all staff and volunteers (in addition to parents/carers and children) to feel confident and comfortable in discussing any allegations of child abuse or child safety concerns. We train our staff and volunteers to identify, assess, and minimise risks of child abuse and to detect potential signs of child abuse.

We also support our staff and volunteers through ongoing supervision to develop their skills to protect children from abuse and promote the cultural safety of Aboriginal children, the cultural safety of children from linguistically and/or diverse backgrounds, and the safety of children and young people with a disability.

New employees and volunteers will be supervised regularly to ensure they understand our organisation’s commitment to child and young people safety and that everyone has a role to play in protecting and young people from abuse, as well as checking that their behaviour towards children and young people is safe and appropriate (please refer to this MMADs code of conduct to understand appropriate behaviour further). Any inappropriate behaviour will be reported through appropriate channels, including the Family and Community Services and the Police, depending on the severity and urgency of the matter.

OTHER LEGISLATION, INDUSTRY STANDARDS ORINTERNAL POLICIES

1.1 This policy refers to:

  • Australian Government DFAT Child Protection Policy

  • Australian Privacy Principles January 2014

  • The Convention on the Rights of the Child: Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of November1989.

1.2 Setting the Standard:

Our Approach to Child Protection:
Musicians Making a difference takes our legal responsibilities seriously, including:

  • Failure to disclose: Reporting child sexual abuse is a community-wide responsibility. All adults who have a reasonable belief that an adult has committed a sexual offence against a child under 16 have an obligation to report that information to the police.

  • Failure to protect: People of authority in Musicians Making A Difference will commit an offence if they know of a substantial risk of child sexual abuse and have the power or responsibility to reduce or remove the risk, but negligently fail to do so. breach of this policy may result in disciplinary action; however, a serious breach may be deemed a criminal offence under relevant legislation

  • Any personnel who are mandatory reporters must comply with their duties.

COMMUNICATION

We identify the ways in which we will communicate and educate stakeholders on the key messages within our child safe policy:

  • Musicians Making a Difference will discuss this policy with all new staff and volunteers

  • Musicians Making a Difference will discuss this policy with all new participants

REVIEW

Musicians Making A Difference commits to setting dates to review and update our child safe policy for continuous improvement purposes:

This policy will be reviewed every two years and following significant incidents if they occur. We will ensure that families, young people and children have the opportunity to contribute. Where possible we do our best to work with local Aboriginal communities, culturally and/or linguistically diverse communities and people with a disability.