Child Safety - New Zealand
- Zoe Timbrell
- Andrew Watkins
Keeping children safe is everyone’s responsibility. Organisations and professionals who work with children are required to ensure that their policies and practices reflect this responsibility.
Every day thousands of people work with children in both paid and unpaid roles, providing them with care, support and new opportunities. The overwhelming majority are safe, conscientious people who keep the children in their care safe and protected.
Unfortunately, we know that a small number of individuals seek positions with organisations to gain access to children and do them harm. Others are simply not prepared or committed to protecting the children in their care. Abuse can take many forms and may involve neglect or emotional, physical and sexual maltreatment. The consequences can be devastating for the child, the family, co-workers, the organisation itself and also the wider community.
Effective screening, as part of a comprehensive organisational child protection policy, can help identify potentially unsuitable people before they have the opportunity to do harm to children or allow harm to be perpetrated by others.
No process is foolproof, and studies of convicted child abusers have shown that they often employ a number of systematic techniques to avoid detection. However, by following a rigorous process that looks
at the information available about a person, you can significantly reduce the risk faced by your organisation.
From Safer Recruitment, Safer Children guidelines http://www.childmatters.org.nz/file/Resources-page/safer-recruitment-safer-children-fa-2.pdf
The more widely known that an organisation has a comprehensive checking process, the better. Potential child abusers are often deterred by the fact that they will be checked and that other staff are trained in child protection.
The Voluntarily platform supports child safety through tools and processes for:
Identity - ensuring people are who they say they are.
Screening - processes for analysing the information gathered and identifying suitable candidates – in this case, those who can be relied on to keep children safe.
Vetting - the formal process of obtaining checks from another agency, e.g., the Police Vetting Service, criminal conviction history checks.
Tracking - identifying volunteer activities that involve working with children and signalling to activity organisers the status of the people volunteering.
‘Child’ means a child or young person under the age of 18.
‘Children’s worker’ means any person working (either in a paid or a volunteer role) with children.
We also have obligations around equal and fair treatment and managing personal information appropriately.
Collecting information about volunteers
We may collect the following information:
Consent or non-consent for the current employer to be contacted.
A declaration of whether or not they have been convicted of a criminal offence, which is not eligible to be concealed under the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 and space to provide an explanation.
Consent to undertake a Criminal Conviction History Check or Police Vet, using the required forms.
Any other necessary disclosures. For example, details of their professional registration status and any previous employment or professional disciplinary history that could be relevant to child safety.