Since September 2017 the NSW Government has been incrementally introducing various child protection legal and regulatory reforms that reflect the changing child safety landscape in Australia resulting from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission).

Changes to the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) and Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012 (NSW) align NSW - with other jurisdictions and key Royal Commission recommendations, including, but not limited to:

• A new criminal offence to fail to reduce or remove the risk of a child becoming a victim of child abuse. YET TO TAKE EFFECT
• A new criminal offence of grooming a person for unlawful sexual activity with a child under the person’s authority. YET TO TAKE EFFECT
• A new criminal offence of ‘concealing child abuse’, criminalising the failure to report information that might assist the apprehension or conviction of a child abuse offender. YET TO TAKE EFFECT
• A new obligation on employers to verify and record workers’ Working with Children Check clearances prior to their engagement by the organisation. IN EFFECT

Additionally, the development and release of voluntary Principles of Child-Safe Organisations by the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) in September 2017 and finalisation and release of the Royal Commission’s 10 Child Safe Standards in December 2017 has created a high benchmark for best practice child safety compliance for child related organisations in NSW, including non-government schools.

Collectively, these legal and regulatory reforms present a great opportunity for NSW non-government schools to develop and implement a comprehensive and integrated child protection program of strategies, systems, policies, procedures and practices benchmarked against best practice as determined by the Royal Commission, in line with other jurisdictions around Australia.