Chapter 8 of the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017 (SA) (Safety Act) requires certain organisations, including non-government schools, to provide a child safe environment.
Under section 114 of the Safety Act, these organisations must lodge a child safe environments compliance statement with the Department of Human Services (DHS) as soon as reasonably practicable after preparing, adopting, varying or substituting the organisation’s policies and procedures for ensuring a child safe environment.
Section 115 of the Safety Act requires that these policies and procedures must be reviewed every five years, at a minimum. Together, these requirements mean that non-government schools must:
- lodge an initial child safe environments statement when they first prepare or adopt their child safe policies and procedures
- review these policies and procedures at least every five years
- lodge an additional child safe environments compliance statement every time their policies or procedures are varied or substituted, whether as a result of their internal review cycle (whether every five years or more frequently), of legislative change, or otherwise.