Child Wise Royal Commission and National Child Protection Standards

Child Wise Royal Commission and National Child Protection Standards

Child Wise, Australia's leading International Child Protection NGO, welcomes the bipartisan Royal Commission and calls for it to lead to National Child Protection Standards, the only effective way to prevent and reduce child sexual abuse.

Survivor of child sexual abuse, Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin, A.O. has advocated for National Child Protection Standards since 1994. 'Children are in serious danger if there are not organisation wide standards in place to protect them," she said.

'This Royal Commission must go beyond the handling of complaints; it must examine how the lack of effective, compulsory standards has directly led to the sexual abuse of children."

Individuals and organisations that have been complicit in child sexual abuse have not done so in a vacuum. It is through organisational cultures of secrecy, denial and ignorance that child sex offenders gain access to our children.

Child Wise are experts in the field of Child Safe Organisations and have trained tens of thousands of Australian and overseas organisations in child safety and protection. Child Wise's award winning Choose With Care® program has been recognised by State and Federal Ministers as the benchmark for training Child Safe Organisations, but this was not enforced.

The only standards in place are the Working With Children Checks and Police Checks. They are inadequate measures: as only 5% of sex offenders are caught, these checks fail to account for 95% of child abusers.

'Organisations that do not meet these standards should be prevented from working with children," Bernadette said. 'There are many organisations in this category and they are dangerous to children because there are no child protection regulations."

The National Standards must require all organisations that interact with children to implement and conduct:
Risk Assessments for all programs;
Child Safe Recruitment Policies;
Codes of Conduct in relation to behaviour with children;
Child Protection Policies & Procedures;
Managing complaints and Whistle Blower Policies;
Empowerment of Children and Staff to speak up against child abuse.

There is a critical need for National Child Protection Standards: attitudes may change but unless there are mandatory Child Protection Standards, people will not report, and the preconditions for child sexual abuse will remain.

If anyone has concerns or suspicions over child abuse, they can call the toll-free, confidential, Child Wise National Helpline on 1800 99 10 99.