Child Safe Standards

What are the Child Safe Standards?

Charles La Trobe P-12 College takes a zero-tolerance approach to child abuse and is fully committed to ensuring that its strategies, policies, procedures and practices meet all Child Safety Standards as specified in Ministerial Order No. 1359.

The Victorian government introduced compulsory minimum child safe standards that applied from 1 January 2016 to all organisations providing regulated or funded services for children. The child safe standards form part of the Victorian Government’s response to the Betrayal of Trust Inquiry, which found that more must be done to prevent and respond to child abuse in our community.

In 2022, the Minister for Education issued Ministerial Order No. 1359 – Implementing the Child Safe Standards – Managing the risk of child abuse in schools and school boarding premises (Ministerial Order No. 1359). It outlines minimum requirements schools and school boarding premises must meet to comply with the new Child Safe Standards.

The purpose of the child safe standards is to drive continuous improvement in the way organisations prevent child abuse, encourage reporting and improve responses to allegations of abuse. The child safe standards closely align with existing regulatory requirements for early childhood services and many services will already be taking steps to implement the standards.

During 2022, the Executive Leadership of Charles La Trobe College, including the College Principal and each of the site or campus principals – La Trobe Primary and Secondary, Olympic Village and The Pavilion School, as well as the director of Quantum Victoria, re-composed the applicable policies pertaining to the Standards.