There are many reasons why the Child Safety Standards (CSS) are important:

• When we care for children and keep them safe, we are following Christ’s mandate. We must always remember that children bring their own unique vulnerabilities and that they rely on safe adults, and protective cultures, to keep them safe. Keeping safe is not something that children can reliably do on their own.
• We have a synodical responsibility to protect and care for our children. Our LCA Synod has acknowledged that children are a precious gift from God, that they are to be nourished and nurtured in their spiritual life within the church, that their needs must be considered by all boards, councils, and committees, and that they are to be cared for and protected by maintaining and promoting a culture of safety in all areas of the church, congregation, and its activities. In addition, the objects of the constitution of the church include a requirement that children are to be protected from all physical, psychological, sexual and spiritual abuse.
• We also have multiple legal responsibilities relating to child safety. We have a duty of care to keep children safe and this duty of care sits with our church councils and leadership teams. We are also required to abide by various laws in each jurisdiction that relate to mandatory reporting, failure to report, failure to protect, reportable conduct, and working with children type checks.
• And finally, we have important regulatory responsibilities in relation to compliance with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations across each of our Australian jurisdictions.

Yes, all congregations of the LCA in Australia that have children participating in regular worship, prayer, children’s ministry, or any other activities involving children, are expected to complete a CSS self-assessment and submit a Child Safety Plan once every two years. If you do not have children in regular attendance, you may be eligible to fill out a Congregation Without Children Assurance. Please check with your District Professional Standards Officer (PSO) or the CSS Implementation Support Officer on 0491 911 643 or via email at css@lca.org.au.

No, congregations who do not have children in regular attendance are not required to do a self-assessment or prepare a Child Safety Plan at this time. Instead, congregations without children are asked to provide an assurance that they appreciate the special vulnerabilities of children, that they understand the importance of the LCA Child Safety Standards and their responsibilities to keep children safe and, should their circumstances change, that they will commit to implementing the standards in their congregation.

If you are unsure whether your congregation fits this category, and you need clarification, please contact your District Professional Standards Officer or the CSS Implementation Support Officer to discuss this (0491 911 643 or css@lca.org.au).

The assurance document can be found here on the CSS webpage.

You need to complete a Child Safety Self-Assessment and prepare a Child Safety Plan for your congregation once every two years.

This means that once you have completed your self-assessment and plan in 2022, you do not have to complete another self-assessment or Child Safety Plan until mid-2024.

You may come across in some documents that a self-assessment and plan are to be done each year. This was changed to two yearly reporting after feedback from congregations. It provides a better balance between regulatory requirements and congregational needs and gives more time for congregations to implement their Child Safety Plans. We are in the process of changing all documentation to reflect this change.

The council or leadership team plays a very important role in the successful implementation of the Child Safety Standards in your congregation or parish.

To fulfil the requirements of Standard 1, you should be striving to establish a child-safe culture within your governance and leadership teams, as well as across your congregation or parish. One way you can demonstrate this is by positively embracing the CSS and viewing this work as an important part of your mission and ministry with children and families.

This means that our councils and leadership teams should be doing everything possible to model a child-safe culture by communicating child-safe messages and implementing child-safe practices.

This is up to you, and it very much depends on what will work best for your parish and its congregations.

You may decide to undertake a combined self-assessment of all congregations and prepare one Child Safety Plan for the parish as a whole. If you choose this approach, your assessor would report to your parish council or leadership team who would then, in turn, take responsibility for developing and approving the Child Safety Plan. The parish council would also take primary responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the plan and for its regular review.

However, you may decide that your congregations are quite distinct, with diverse needs and differing demographics. In this situation, you would probably be best placed to conduct separate self-assessments and prepare separate Child Safety Plans for each of your congregations.

Or you may decide to do a combination of the above.

You may also decide to appoint separate assessors for each of the congregations or, alternatively, appoint the same assessor across all congregations.

It really is up to you to tailor the process to best suit the needs of your parish and congregations.

We suggest you discuss it at your parish council and congregational council meetings before you make the decision.

Also, don’t forget, you can always give us a call or contact your Professional Standards Officer to talk it through (0491 911 643 or css@lca.org.au).

This is a learning process for your congregation designed to help you do two things:

1. identify how well you are going
2. develop a plan to help you progress.

So, with this in mind, we have a two-step process:

1. a Child Safety Self-Assessment to help you understand your strengths and identify where there might be gaps
2. a Child Safety Plan to help you identify actions to fill those gaps.

Then, there is, of course, also stage three, where you put your plan into action!

This may happen from time to time – we apologise and will try to fix it quickly.

Please give us a call or send us an email to let us know so that we can get on top of this.

Contact 0491 011 643 or css@lca.org.au.

Safe Church Training and the Child Safety Standards are complementary to each other. Completing the requirements for both of these will help your congregation to be a safe and welcoming place for all the children in your congregation as well as for any other vulnerable members.

Safe Church Training is a very important part of Standard 7 of the Child Safety Standards. Completing the training for all of your church workers will mean that you are well on the way to giving your congregation a good rating for Standard 7 and improving the safety of your congregation

It is important to undergo the assessment task every two years.

This is because things will have changed since your last assessment – such as changes to staffing, volunteers, members and attendance. In addition, your child safety priorities may now be quite different, particularly if you have completed many of the actions from your previous Child Safety Plan.

Also, a new assessor may bring fresh eyes to your congregation’s work.

We hope so. Just like your Self-Assessment has highlighted areas where your congregation has gaps and priorities, we are learning more about how this process might be improved to better support each congregation. Once we have completed the first cycle from local congregation to district and General Church Board, we will be spending some time refining the process.

We hope not – this would be very sad. After all, Matthew 19:14 encourages us to not hinder our children coming to Jesus – he really wants to be accessible to all. Children bring a unique energy to the church, which can be such a blessing.

It is important to remember that the self-assessment will not be a lot of work if your congregation is small and/or if you don’t have many children attending or any children’s programs.

No, not at the moment – we are waiting for further news from the NZ Royal Commission, so you do not need to do a Self-Assessment or Child Safety Plan for now. However, if you would like to complete a Child Safety Self-Assessment to see how your congregation is going, and then prepare a Child Safety Plan, you are most welcome to use these resources. Please do give us a ring or email us if you have any queries along the way (0491 911 643 or css@lca.org.au) or contact the LCNZ PSO, Denise Muschamp, at pso@lutheran.org.nz

Yes, you are correct, the LCA Child Safety Standards for Congregations are different in their wording and style from the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and from the Victorian Child Safety Standards. This is because we have tried to tailor the LCA Standards to the faith-based and volunteer-based context. We have also tried to keep their implementation simple and user-friendly by adopting a self-assessment, learning-based approach and by not seeking a rigorous evidence base at the congregational level.

For now, we would encourage you and your congregation to focus on the LCA Standards – the Self-Assessment, Child Safety Plan and its implementation. We believe that this will cover the ground required for fulfilling the National Principles and the Victorian Standards despite the differences in order and wording.

Standard 1 of the Victorian Standards requires that organisations pay special and important attention to the specific needs and vulnerabilities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait children and families. This standard is much more rigorous in its requirements than the equivalent Principle 4 in the National Principles relating to diversity and to Standard 4 of the LCA Standards.