Risk Management

Under the Victorian Child Safe Standards, organisations with children must have strategies to identify and reduce or remove risks of child abuse. The Safe Church Unit (SCU) completes these assessments for the denomination as a whole annually, based on Safe Church policy and procedure, and provides a Risk Assessment Tool for local churches to undertake assessments of their own ministries. The Risk Assessment Template is useful for assessment of specific activities, e.g. a youth camp.

Duty of Care

A duty of care exists when your actions could be reasonably expected to affect another person. As an employee or volunteer in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria (PCV), working with children under 18 years of age or with adults, you have a duty of care towards the people you minister to and your co-leaders, and potentially to others that you may come into contact with. You also have a duty of care to the parents of children in the ministry. The PCV is responsible for your actions as an employee or volunteer.

Duty of care is your obligation to act as a reasonable person towards others in whatever circumstances arise in your position as an employee or volunteer. Your actions should be made with care, attention, caution, and common sense. If they are not, then you may breach your duty of care.

T.A.P. Principle

Visibility and transparency, both in location and intention, maintains accountability in all areas of ministry. Always practice Transparency - Accountability - Preparation as you serve in your role, so together we can further safeguard children and the vulnerable amongst us from abuse and harm in our denomination.

• Transparency - we are transparent in how we minister.
• Accountability - we are accountable to the Lord, each other and any applicable laws in how we minister and respond to abuse related concerns in the church.
• Preparation - we do all we can to prepare our ministries in such a way as to prevent abuse occurring in the church and to know how to respond should we have concerns about abuse.

Never be alone with a child - there should always be other people nearby and within view. Visiting and one-to-one ministries with children must be approved by the session and may not take place without written permission signed by the child's parents/guardians. Parents/guardians must be informed of the date, time and location of any meeting.

In the broader culture in which we minister is best practice not to visit or meet one-to-one with a person of the opposite gender alone - take another person with you. Inform your ministry team leader and spouse if applicable, and document any meetings. Meet in a public location and be mindful of the Safe Church Code of Conduct.

Communication & Boundaries

Clear communication helps prevent abuse because everyone involved is clear on how the ministry operates, what each individual is capable of, and what each individual is comfortable with. It does not assume.

This includes communication around the times, dates and activities involved in a ministry. It ensures parents/guardians are aware of the activities their children will be involved in and the support their children will receive. It also makes sure that people within the church are able to speak up with any concerns they have around abuse, to a leader within the church or directly to the SCU.

It also includes communication and boundary setting around language use and physical contact. The Safe Church Code of Conduct provides some upper limits on boundaries of physical conduct.

First Aid

Every church must have at least one suitably stocked and up-to-date first aid kit on-site. A travel kit must be taken to off-site activities e.g. youth camps. A timely response to a first aid incident is essential. First aid officers appointed by the session or board must be suitably qualified, having completed a first aid course or higher training by virtue of their profession (e.g. a nurse, doctor or surgeon).

Employees and volunteers must be informed as to where to locate the first aid kit(s). In the case of an incident, they must notify team leaders and complete a First Aid Incident Report Form and/or record the incident on the First Aid Register.

During children's ministry activities, both prescription and non-prescription medication may only be administered by a leader with parent/guardian permission. Prescription medication must be kept in a secure location and only administered in the presence of two or more leaders, keeping a record of when and by whom medication was administered.

Pornography

The use of pornography, a pervasive part of modern media, is explicitly against the Safe Church Code of Conduct. Use is often exacerbated by stress and always impacts on a person's spiritual life, relationship with God, and potentially relationships with others. A person who comes forward seeking help should be met with compassion and support, and recommended to take a break from any leadership roles while working through their struggles.

Kooyoora's Fact sheet: Pornography: Understanding Its Influence on Individuals, Relationships, and Society is available as an online flipbook or for download below.

Facility Hire

There are no Safe Church obligations that can be lawfully placed upon an external body operating on its own behalf. Any body permitted by a church to use church premises to conduct business is responsible itself to meet legal or insurance requirements related to child safety to function lawfully in Victoria.

It is, however, prudent for churches to require outside bodies using their premises to commit to child safety, being aware of the likely reputational impact on the church of a noncompliant entity on the premises.

Children's Ministry

Ministering to children under 18 comes with additional legislative requirements, government guidelines and minimum standards. This involves wisdom, patience, transparency, accountability and preparation. It requires listening to children and encouraging them to speak up with ideas, suggestions and concerns about the program, their wellbeing, and their safety.

Supervision

There must be a minimum of two adult leaders for all ministry programs. On-site ministry programs should must have a supervision ratio of at least 1 adult:10 children (e.g. kids church), and off-site ministry programs must have a supervision ratio of at least 1 adult:8 children (e.g. youth group bowling). Children should be signed in/out by their parents/guardians and regular head counts must be taken by leaders, particularly at times of movement between spaces.

Digital Ministry

Online and smart phone communication can create an intense relational situation because of the ease of access, comfort of distance and unobserved nature of communication. However, the same code of conduct applies to leaders interacting with young people online as it does face to face.

Leaders should always seek transparency online, remembering that they are interacting with real people, what goes online stays online, and private messages and videos can easily be shared with others. Get parent/guardian permission before communicating digitally with a child and wherever possible avoid individual contact with young people online.

Churches and organisations must either adopt the following guidelines as policy or develop and adopt their own church-specific guidelines to promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed online.

Junior Leaders

Junior leaders are persons under 18 years of age leading or helping in children's ministry. This is a great practice for churches to include and give children opportunities to serve and grow, e.g. teenagers helping with creche or kids church.

There are no Safe Church administrative or training requirements for junior leaders. However, the junior leader remains a child themselves - they cannot be left alone with or be made responsible for other children, and must always work under the supervision of an adult leader. An adult leader must make sure they are never alone with a junior leader.

Preventing Bullying

Bullying is repeated verbal, physical, social or psychological behaviour that is harmful and involves the misuse of power by an individual or group towards another person/s. Bullying may include behaviours such as excluding, poking and pushing, gossiping, taking someone’s belongings, or humiliating, but bullying is not a one-off act of meanness.

Bullying has no place in the church, between adults or children. By developing inclusive relationships, under adequate supervision, positive behaviours can be reinforced. Loving, forgiving and encouraging children with the support of parents/guardians and other teachers can teach children Christ-likeness.

Toileting Children

Toileting involves a child leaving the safety of the group and entering a space that may provide child predators with an opportunity to act. Each church/organisation should consider the physical location of their toilets and develop appropriate protocols from there. These practices must be communicated clearly to parents. Suggested practices include:

• Asking parents of babies, infants and toddlers to toilet or change their children's nappies before signing them in. Let parents know that nappies will not be changed by leaders or volunteers, but the parent will be called or texted in the event their child's nappy needs changing.
• An adult leader escorting pre-school and younger primary school aged children to the bathroom in pairs, ensuring the bathroom is safe, and waiting outside the door until the child is finished. Adult leaders will only assist the child if required and will inform another leader of the group upon returning if this occurs.
• Sending older primary aged children and teenagers to the bathroom in pairs, being mindful of when the children left and sending a leader to investigate if they have been gone longer than reasonable.

Driving Children

If a child requires transport to/from a ministry event by leaders or team members, leaders must seek session approval beforehand and ask parents/guardians to sign a consent form, e.g. the Youth Driving Permission Form below.

Leaders should avoid any situation where they are driving children or young people unaccompanied, e.g. if driving 3 children to 2 locations drop off the single child first and then drive the other two to their location.

Kids Hope Australia

Kids Hope partners with churches and schools to facilitate one to one mentoring of vulnerable children throughout Australia. Where Kids Hope volunteers are active in local schools on behalf of their church, the church's session is liable for these volunteers and obligated to ensure necessary screening, supervision and training requirements are fulfilled.

Homepage - Kids Hope

Kids Hope mentoring has impacted over 20,000 Aussie kids. Our simple & effective model provides social & emotional support to children to thrive in school & life.

Kids Hope

Persons of Concern

All regular church attendees who are identified as a person of concern^[1] are required to have an appropriate risk management plan formulated with internal and external safeguarding and legal input. This is a reasonable step in line with the Wrongs Amendment (Organisational Child Abuse) Act 2017 to minimise the risk of child abuse and allows a person of concern to be a member of a church community.

Risk management may include the signing of a safety agreement by church representatives and the person of concern. Persons of concern may not hold any office or role within the church, paid or unpaid.