To grow and develop, children and young people need to be provided with safe and secure environments and be surrounded by adults who will protect them from harm.
Services have a responsibility to ensure that children and young people are safe while engaged in their programs: by identifying and minimising environmental risks, by engaging professional and adequately trained and supervised staff and by creating a setting where children and young people can discuss their concerns.
Booklet: Keep Me Safe
This booklet provides information on talking about tough stuff with kids and parents; what to do when a kid discloses abuse, harm or fear of harm; creating a kid-safe service; planning for safety; power and children's safety; tools and activities for kids about safety; a scenario and links to other resources.
Booklet: Keep Me Safe (PDF, 5.4MB)
Poster: Keep Me Safe (PDF, 581KB)
Tools
Some of the tools from the Kids Central Toolkit are also available to download below, including:
- Tool 1A: Identifying Risks (PDF, 301KB)
Can be used to begin a discussion about safety; help families develop strategies and to plan ways of responding to any risks they might face; and help children develop a sense of safety in the knowledge that their concerns have been raised and dealt with.
- Tool 1B: Safety Plan (PDF, 369KB)
Can be used to help families develop a plan for when they are confronted by potential threats to their safety.
- Tool 1C: How I’m Feeling (PDF 3.10MB)
Can be used to hear from children about how they are feeling and to give children permission to talk about or express their feelings in a safe and non-threatening way
- Tool 1D: Things That Make Me Feel Safe (PDF, 302KB)
Can be used to introduce the topic of safety to children; hear from children about the things that help them feel safe; help with safety planning for individual children; and help families understand what each child needs to feel safe.
- Tool 1E: Worryometer (PDF, 284KB)
Can be used to get a sense of how unsafe or worried children are feeling; allow exploration of what is making children feel unsafe, what helps them feel safer and less safe; and help children begin to differentiate between big worries and little worries.
- Tool 1F: Helping Hands (PDF 298, KB)
Can be used to find out who children can trust in their networks; to see how small or large a child’s safety network is; and helps with making safety plans, to fill in safety cards for each family member.
- Tool 1G: Responding to Concerns (PDF, 261KB)
Can be used to respond to children's safety issues and concerns that might arise in discussions / planning.
- Tool 1H: Safe Spaces (PDF, 477KB)
Can be used to help kids develop skills in relaxing and conclude a group session.
- Tool 1I: Jumping Jellyfish (PDF 400KB)
Can be used to explore safety and trust in a fun way; allow children to experiment with trusting someone else in a safe environment; help workers and parents gain understanding of a child’s sense of safety and ability to trust. Also affords a great opportunity to talk about feelings, how we know when we feel safe, how we know if we feel unsafe, listening to our body’s messages and our feelings.
