This year, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) has launched a new child-safe campaign and website called MACS Care. The purpose of this is to assist schools in continuing to build a child safety culture and maintain compliance with the Victorian Child Safe Standards.
The MACS care website includes a number of resources and templates to guide schools throughout the year as they focus on all 11 standards each month.
This month, we will be focussing on Child Safe Standard 8: Staff and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge, skills and awareness to keep children and young people safe through ongoing education and training.
As Catholic educators our commitment to child safety ensures that staff undertake ongoing training and professional development that supports them to identify children at risk. Such training will also support staff in recognising indicators of harm, take action when it comes to wellbeing and child safe concerns and ultimately create culturally safe environments where our young people feel protected.
Child Safe Standard 8 recognises that safeguarding requires ongoing learning, development and reflection for staff. Professional development ensures that educators are informed when it comes to legislative obligations, evolving risks and what is best practice when it comes to student wellbeing and child safety.
I encourage you to read the Newsletter Child Safe Standard 8 which will give you a better understanding of what our College do to ensure our students are safe and the processes involved in making Catholic Regional College Caroline Springs a child safe school.