Our safety counts: Children and young people’s perceptions of safety and institutional responses to their safety concerns

Moore, Tim; McArthur, Morag; Heerde, Jessica A.; Roche, Steven; O’Leary, Patrick

doi:10.24268/fhs.8349

Cited by 13 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…' (Young woman, In 2014, the Institute of Child Protection Studies at the Australian Catholic University, with partners from Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University, were commissioned to work with Australian children and young people to better understand how children conceptualise safety, and how they believe that institutions with which they interact keep them safe and respond to their safety needs. In addition to meeting with students in schools, with children and young people involved in childcare and holiday programs, and from Aboriginal programs, researchers met with young people in out-of-home care (T. Moore, McArthur, Noble-Carr, & Harcourt, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Safe and Sound: Exploring the safety of young people in residential care

Moore¹,

McArthur²,

Roche³

et al. 2016

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Safe and Sound: Exploring the safety of young people in residential care

Moore¹,

McArthur²,

Roche³

et al. 2016

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“…Children and young people often hear about threats and other safety issues but are not often informed about what is being done to protect them. They feel that often children and young people experience fear unnecessarily and need adults to provide them with enough information to reduce their fears (Moore et al, 2015).…”

Section: Children and Young People's Conceptualisation Of Safetymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…do what they say they are going to do; don't play favourites; and monitor their peers (Moore et al, 2015).…”

Section: Embedding Participation Into Organisational Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…believe that the issue or concern relates to something outside of their workplace/environment and think it's not their place to respond; think someone else is dealing with the issue; and don't think that it's their role to respond. (Moore et al, 2015) Overcoming barriers to seeking support…”

Section: Embedding Participation Into Organisational Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Children's Safety Study (see Moore, McArthur, Heerde, Roche, & O'Leary, 2016 for a discussion of the findings; Moore, McArthur, Noble-Carr, & Harcourt, 2015) was conducted jointly by the Institute of Child Protection Studies (ACU), QUT and Griffith University and aimed to gain better understanding of children's perceptions of safety and safety needs, as well as how they believed adults and institutions protected them from harm.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Protection through participation: Involving children in child-safe organisations.

Moore¹

2017

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Enabling children and young people to understand, identify and raise their safety concerns with a trusted adult and within safe organisations is vital. However, there is little advice provided to adults and institutions about how this might be done in child-centred and child-informed ways. Drawing from the Children's Safety Study, a study that considered children's perceptions of safety, their safety needs and how well they believed adults and institutions protected them from harm, this paper provides practical guidance based on what children and young people have said themselves, as well as observations about how this might be put into practice. Also included in this paper is a description of some tools successfully used to talk to children and young people about their safety, and some ways that adults and institutions can respond. Children and young people value being helped to better understand risks and to make better judgements on when to trust and when to be wary. Because children and young people understand and experience safety differently from adults, adults and organisations need to understand what safety means to kids and act to respond to their fears. Including children in the development of strategies and responses for their own safety results in a greater likelihood that children will utilise and feel positive about them. Children and young people want organisations to provide safe physical environments: places that are bright and cheerful, where kids are able to move around, to play and to "hang out" with friends and people they trust. For children's participation to be successful it needs to be supported by the whole organisation, and dialogue about safety needs to be ongoing and built into as many interactions between adults and children as possible. Children and young adults need adults and peers they can trust, and these adults must be accessible, physically present and available when needed. Raising concerns with an adult can be difficult, potentially embarrassing, shameful or uncomfortable. Adults need to respond respectfully and in ways that allay children's fears and discomfort.

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Children and safety in Australian policy: Implications for organisations and practitioners

Powell

Graham

Canosa

et al. 2020

Aust J Social Issues

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Child safety is now a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive enquiries and reviews have escalated legislative and policy responses focused on developing, maintaining and monitoring “child safe” organisations. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse point to the importance of cultural conditions within organisations in supporting child safety and the need for responsive change in some organisations. Drawing on a recent policy analysis, undertaken as part of a larger Australian Research Council Discovery Project, this article examines how children and safety are constructed, within and across relevant state and federal government policies in Australia, and the implications of this. Distinctions are drawn between conceptualisations of children within the broader education policy context and two specific policy contexts in which children are considered particularly vulnerable to abuse – out‐of‐home care and disability. The findings indicate that policy discourses of “child safe” potentially foster different emphases and approaches in organisations. These have implications for the way children are positioned in relation to their safety, how their rights are recognised and implemented, and what is required to foster cultural conditions within organisations to best support children’s safety and wellbeing.

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Our safety counts: Children and young people’s perceptions of safety and institutional responses to their safety concerns

Cited by 13 publications

References 73 publications

Safe and Sound: Exploring the safety of young people in residential care

Safe and Sound: Exploring the safety of young people in residential care

Protection through participation: Involving children in child-safe organisations.

Children and safety in Australian policy: Implications for organisations and practitioners

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