Child safe is a church wide program that provides standards, training, resources and an online data base to manage a church's people and programs.
The system has a strong emphasis on preventing the maltreatment of children and responding appropriately when child abuse comes to light. ChildSafe also assists the organisation to plan safe activities and programs using a risk management framework.
The system covers a broad range of topics such as:
- Screening and recruiting.
- Duty of care issues, with a code of practice for working with children and young people.
- Supervision and work within a safe team.
- Signs and indicators of child abuse, responding sensitively to disclosure of abuse.
- Dealing with suspicions, disclosures and allegations relating to child protection issues.
- Transportation and water-based activities as a particular risk focus.
- Hygiene, medical safety, infection, food handling.
- Accident and incident reporting, processing and analysis.
- An Emergency Response process.
Synod has encouraged every church to participate in Child Safe.