What’s new for Round 2 of the Child Safety Standards?

Round 2 of the LCA Child Safety Standards Action Plans are due to be submitted by 31 March 2025.

What can you and your congregational leadership expect for Round 2?

By now, you will hopefully have seen the updated LCA Child Safety Standards, which were released in August of this year.

As in Round 1 in 2022, congregations are expected to both undertake Self-Assessments and submit Child Safety Standards Action Plans. The purpose of a Self-Assessment is to establish what progress has been made in relation to child safety. A Child Safety Standards Action Plan outlines future improvements in child safety the applicable congregation will be working on.

For those congregations that do not have children in regular attendance, the opportunity to submit a Child Safety ‘No Children’ Assurance will still be available in Round 2.

Following Round 1, we have made some improvements to our online tools.

The online portal is where congregations submit either:

• a Child Safety ‘No Children’ Assurance
• a Child Safety Self-Assessment and Child Safety Standards Action Plan.

Last year, you could submit your Child Safety Standards Action Plan without using the online portal for your Self-Assessment. In Round 2, this is no longer possible. Congregations must enter their Self-Assessment online.

Why? The new online portal will now automatically populate and create your Child Safety Standards Action Plan from the proposed actions in your Self-Assessment. This eliminates the duplicated work that occurred in Round 1.

We have developed videos to show you around the online portal and examples of the PDFs generated by the form for both Child Safety Self-Assessments and Child Safety Standards Action Plans. These PDFs have been revised for Round 2, and we hope they will be more useful for councils.

Chairs and leadership councils are asked to watch LCA communications closely for the announcements of the online portal opening. We hope to have the portal and all other resources updated and back in operation to begin taking submissions in October.

What can councils do now to prepare?

A council can prepare for Round 2 by:

• doing a final review of their 2022–23 Child Safety Standards Action Plan
• familiarising themselves with the standards and the process
• selecting an assessor and supporting them with Safe Church Training and working with children type check requirements
• gathering their previous Self-Assessment and Child Safety Standards Action Plan and any other supporting documents (agendas and minutes) to assist their assessor with the Self-Assessment.

The following tools are now back on the website and available for congregations:

• Child Safety Standards Self-Assessment and Action Plan Guide
• video – How to use the online portal to submit a Child Safety ‘No Children’ Assurance
• video – How to use the online portal to submit a Child Safety Self-Assessment
• examples of the final PDF for Self-Assessment and Action Plan
• Suggestions and Tips for Child Safety Assessors
• the Notetaker.

A suggested congregation timeline

September: Councils select your assessors and begin Self-Assessment interviews and collation.

October: Anticipate the tool to go live; assessors complete Self-Assessments on the online portal during October/November. Child Safety ‘No Children’ Assurances may start to be submitted online.

November–February: Councils to review Self-Assessments and begin work on Child Safety Standards Action Plans.

March council meetings: Accept finalised Child Safety Standards Action Plans, ready to hit the Submit button.

31 March 2025: All Child Safety Standards Action Plans and Child Safety ‘No Children’ Assurances submitted to the Churchwide Office.

Councils are encouraged to work on the Child Safety Standards Action Plan outside of routine meetings or at special meetings to have it ready to submit on time.

Nicole Hall is the LCA’s Child Safety Implementation Support Officer.