Our Commitment

At Australian Disability Care Services (ADCS) we are committed to the safety and wellbeing of children by creating safe and supportive environments where they can develop and thrive. Creating safe and supporting environments means that we consciously integrate the Child Safe Standards into our everyday practice across business and service delivery functions. We develop and deliver our services and supports to promote and protect the safety, interests, wellbeing, and rights of children. We believe that all children have the right to feel safe and we acknowledge our obligation to report child safety concerns to the relevant authorities. We aim to create environments that are free from harm and abuse, where children feel safe. We strive to develop a work culture that is committed to ensure children are free from all forms of abuse. We aim to ensure that supports are services provided to children are designed and delivered with the full participation of children and their families, carers, and advocates. We will implement child safe practices across the organisation, ensuring that child friendly practices permeate through all facets of our work. Our commitment to the implementation of the child safe standards is outlined in this document.

Our commitment to implementing the Child Safe Standards

1. Child safety and wellbeing

By acknowledging and understanding the rights of children, we can support them in the most appropriate way, ensuring that their rights are upheld and protected. We are guided by the rights of children as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. All children have the right to be safe and live lives that are free from harm. They have right to be included in the decisions that impact on their lives and give their opinions freely on issues that affect them. Our duty of care for the children we support means that we will, to the best of our ability, protect children from harm. We will fulfil out duty of care obligations for all children who are involved in, or affected by, suspected abuse.

2. Child participation

We acknowledge that when children feel valued and are included in decisions, they are more likely to trust and engage with us in meaningful ways and we are more likely to reduce their risk of harm. At all times children will be front and foremost in the work we do with them. When we take this approach, we ensure decision making processes centre on the perspectives of children and demonstrate genuine respect for their voices. Putting children at the centre of our work with them ensures that their needs, desires, wants, and goals are addressed through the provision of individualised supports and services. We aim to create spaces where children are knowledgeable about their rights and confident in their ability to express concerns, provide input, and participate in ways that have meaning for them. At all times we expect employees to understand and respect each child’s strengths and take steps to ensure children are treated as competent and capable. Acting with dignity and respect with children involves interacting with them in a way that respects their views, choices, and decisions. By not making assumptions about the way children want to be treated, we can provide appropriate care and support based on the choices they make. Creating environments for children to be independent and make informed decisions includes providing them with access to relevant information, knowledge, and skills. This will support them to make meaningful choices about how they want to live their lives and the support they need from us to reach their goals, aspirations, and full potential.

3. Family and Community Engagement

Involving families and communities in our work with children not only strengthens us as an organisation by strengthening our responses to strategic risks, but it also supports how we manage and respond to the individual risks faced by each child we support.  We strive to build trust with families and communities and create a united front to ensure children’s safety and wellbeing is a top priority and they benefit from strong networks of protection and support. By listening to children, their families and the communities that support them, we demonstrate that their opinions and views are important and can help us to continuously improve how we plan, deliver, and review our services and supports.   We recognise the importance of friendships to help children to feel engaged, safe, and less isolated.  We encourage children to have friends and provide opportunities for connection with friends and peers. It is important that the people we support understand how we plan to keep them safe, what we do to proactively provide safe environments for them to thrive, and how we respond to incidents, disclosures, and suspicions of harm. We will make this information available to children, their families and the communities that support them through our website, and in the information that we provide when we onboard them into our services.

4. Equity and Diversity

We are committed to creating and maintaining environments where children feel safe, valued, respected, supported, and culturally safe. We strive to ensure that all children have fair access to safe and nurturing environments that respond to their unique needs. No child will be disadvantaged due to their culture, disability, gender, or any other aspect of their identity or context. We have a responsibility to ensure the unique needs of every child are not only  acknowledged, but actively addressed in ways that uphold their dignity and rights and recognises their individuality and differences. By promoting and modelling inclusive behaviour we respect individual differences and provide opportunities for children from different backgrounds, cultures, and abilities to engage with their chosen communities and cultural groups.

5. Recruitment, Training, and Supervision

It is essential that all people interacting with children are clear about their roles and responsibilities and apply professional boundaries to protect children from harm and exploitation. We are committed to employing and retaining skilled, experienced, and qualified personnel to work with children. To ensure this commitment is met, we will:

• have position descriptions that set clear expectations about the requirements, duties and responsibilities regarding child safety and wellbeing
• ensure that employees and contractors have current working with children checks and NDIS Work Clearance Notices

• deliver inductions for employees and contractors about their responsibilities, duties, and risks in relation to child safety and wellbeing.
• mentor, supervise, and performance manage employees to gauge their ongoing suitability to work with children and perform their duties
• provide training and professional development opportunities
• ensure hiring managers understand how to prioritise child safety in the recruitment and selection process, including robust probity and pre-employment screening processes
• supervise and guide team members through their probationary period, set performance measures, and assess and review performance on an ongoing basis.

6. Reporting and Responding

We understand that children can only be protected from harm when we consciously commit, plan, and maintain child safe environments and we report and deal with allegations of harm quickly and effectively. Our Responding to Incidents, Disclosures, and Suspicions of Harm Policy and Procedure guides employees and contractors on identifying harm and abuse and managing disclosures or suspected harm and abuse. Employees and people acting on behalf of ADCS will respond to all safety concerns for children in accordance with our policies and procedures and the NSW Mandatory Reporter Guide (MRG). Breaches by employees of their obligation to report and respond to allegations or instances of harm will result in immediate action by management.

7. Risk management

As a service provider, we acknowledge that we will always need to deal with various risks, and that these risks may lead to the harm or abuse of children. By taking a risk management approach, we act proactively to reduce the likelihood of children being harmed which means that fewer children will have to live with the effects of abuse.  Our risk management strategies focus on preventing, identifying, and mitigating risks to children.   Training our employees in risk management  approaches gives them the confidence to work with children in a safe and structured way, and ensures our policies and procedures guide their practice and conduct. Child Safety Risk Management Plan  

8. Cultural safety

We are committed to engaging with people from all walks of life and diverse backgrounds in a way that is culturally safe and free from racism and discrimination. We recognise that cultural safety is the positive recognition and celebration of cultures. It empowers people and enables them to contribute and feel safe to be themselves. We will build our cultural understanding by collaborating and engaging with cultural groups that represent the children we support, building partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait organisations and workers, diversifying our workforce, attending cross-cultural workshops, developing ways to involve people from different cultures to contribute to our organisation and service planning, becoming involved in cultural events and celebrations, and educating our employees on the value of cultural safety and recognition.

9. Continuous Improvement

ADCS is an organisation that provides supports to a wide range of people with different abilities, challenges, characteristics, and needs. We are continuously learning about people and their needs, and the different ways they need supporting to achieve their goals and aspirations. We recognise that a culture of continuous improvement and learning leads to better outcomes for the people we support and the delivery of consistent, safe, and effective services and operational management. We encourage feedback from the people we support, their families and carers, advocates and friends, and the other service providers and organisations with whom they have relationships. By listening to others, enhancing our knowledge, and keeping up with changes and trends in the child safety and disability sectors, we continuously strive to improve how we support people and how we operate as a progressive and responsive organisation. We learn from our mistakes and take on board the findings and learnings from the complaints and incidents we receive and manage. Taking a continuous improvement approach to service delivery involves consistently seeking ways to enhance the quality, effectiveness, and responsiveness of our services.

10. Governance and Leadership

We are committed to creating an organisational culture where every decision, action, and process prioritises the safety and wellbeing of children and people with disability. Our leadership team is responsible for laying the foundation for a proactive, accountable, and child-focused organisation. We committed to creating and maintain a child safe organisation that reduces the opportunity and likelihood of abuse occurring. We have embedded children’s safety and wellbeing into our policies and procedures that provide guidance to employees on how they can effectively prevent and respond to child safety issues. By having child safe policies and procedures, we strive to ensure that each employee understands their role and their responsibilities in creating and maintaining ADCS as a child safe organisation. The leadership team models behaviours that are inclusive, fair, and child friendly and reflect the diverse characteristics of the children we support, paying attention to their different cultural backgrounds, challenges, and abilities. We aim to create an environment that is free of racism and discrimination where everyone in the organisation understands the potential for unconscious bias.

Summary

Our statement of commitment to child safety intends to embed child safe practices across all aspects of our work. We expect employees to read and understand our commitment to the safety and welfare of the children we support, and we welcome feedback from children, their families and carers, community members, and other support services about how we can strengthen our responses to children and ensure their ongoing safety.