Child Safety Standards November 2023 update

Standard 8 in focus: ‘Our risk management has a child-safety focus’

The Lutheran Church of Australia has started implementing the Child Safety Standards across all congregations and parishes in Australia. These are designed to drive cultural change and create, maintain, and improve child-safe practices.

Child-safe churches are always looking at ways to reduce risks to children in both our physical and online spaces by:

• Doing regular Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) reviews of all spaces
• Identifying risks in all church activities and programs (including worship) prior to advertising them and running them
• Ensuring programs are run with appropriate supervision ratios
• Using a Safety Management System, including the Safety Management Online database, to help with planning and preparing for activities as well as with keeping records of incidents
• Using resources from the Risk Management and Workplace Health and Safety modules on the LCANZ Learning Hub
• Following the LCA Social Media Policy and being familiar with what the ChildSafe Australia Code of Practice says about social media
• Communicating regularly with Professional Standards for ongoing support and advice.

Find other resources to help your congregation implement Standard 8 of their Child Safety Plan here. See also the LCANZ Learning Hub.

Care and love for children this Advent and Christmas

November is a busy time in many congregations. Between AGMs, Advent preparations and Christmas preparations, it may be tempting to think it is too busy to pull out the Child Safety Plan and check to see if anything needs to be worked on in the coming months.

Christmas is traditionally a time when families will attend church. In fact, we often expect more families and new families to attend. Many churches put additional special worship and activities on to help share the news of the birth of Christ, especially with and for children and their families – now is definitely not the time to slow down your efforts at improving the safety of your congregation.

Useful things to consider doing at this time of year:

• Have you shared your child safety progress and new initiatives at your AGM?
• Have you recruited and/or appointed a Safe Church Coordinator to fill a vacancy?
• Have new council members for 2024 been made aware that they need to take part in Safe Church Training and apply for working with children type checks?
• Have you done a WHS walk around your property before your Christmas working bee and considered the safety of children?
• Have you done a risk assessment on your children’s nativity play/worship?
• Do you have seasonal helpers at Christmas events – is their Safe Church Training and working with children type check current?
• Are all your child safety posters visible and in good repair?

These are all ways to improve the safety of children visiting your church and share the love of Christ this Christmas.