Is your Swim School Legally Compliant?
On July 1st, 2021, the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations replaced the former South Australian Principles of Good Practice. Therefore, the new child protection regulations have been introduced for South Australian child-related organisations, including Swim Schools. In addition, all organisations who develop child safe policies and procedures, are now required to comply with the National Principles. Therefore, the new requirements are under regulation under the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017 (SA). We have provided a summary on the new child protection regulations below.
Child Safe Environments
South Australia’s Child Safe Environments program currently requires organisations that deliver services or programs to children and young people (including Swim Schools) to:
- Develop child safe policies and procedures
- Lodge a child safe environments compliance statement with the Department of Human Services.
National Principles for Child Safe Organisations
From 1 July 2021, organisations (including Swim Schools) that develop child safe policies and procedures, will have a requirement to align these policies and procedures with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations.
Organisations and Swim Schools must now include the following information in its child safe policies and procedures:
- Working with Children Check requirements through the Screening Unit of the Department of Human Services (unless an exemption applies)
- Use of the language of ‘risk of harm ’ instead of ‘abuse and neglect’ to reflect the lower threshold for mandatory reporting in South Australia
- The process for making a mandatory report, for example to the Child Abuse Report Line (CARL) on 13 14 78.
Guidance and Resources
The Department of Human Services provides a range of resources to support organisations in complying with the National Principles, including:
- National Principles Guidance Handbook
- Checklist of what to include in the Child Safe Environments Policy.
The read additional information, click here.
To find out more information on our Child Safe Training Hub, click here.