Will more complex administrative processes keep our children safe? Photo: File.
As we read the news of the horrendous charges against a Victorian childcare worker, the headlines are predictably screaming about the failures of the system, calling for standardisation, nationalisation, more extensive checks and on it goes.
I’m not sure if more complex checks are going to protect our children. The accused in the recent Victorian case was not known to police and had a valid working with children check, so we need to examine where and why the system is failing our children. And like the perpetrators, the answer lies in the shadows.
From my experience as a volunteer in children’s activities for more than 20 years, it is certainly not about filling in forms. I would even argue the checks have become an end in themselves; a person has a valid check, the box is ticked, and they move on.
As a volunteer, I have sat on school boards, administered junior sports and helped out with a range of activities from ballet to rugby and swimming.
I have watched as overly officious but well-meaning people get heavy handed about the rules surrounding working with children checks; many sports even have a complicated matrix on who requires a check.
The administrative burden is real. Clubs receive the Working with Vulnerable People (WWVP) or Working with Children Check (WWCC) individually. They have long ID numbers, names and multiple dates to be entered one by one into computer systems. Individual expiry dates need to be monitored, and those that have expired must be followed up to renew, and re-entered.
Most sports and activities have well-developed policies and a nominated child protection officer. I have argued long and hard that this is not where it stops.
As people who work with children, whether volunteers or paid, we need to keep an eye on the children and the people around us. And not to the detriment of men, our children need good male role models.
I will never forget an earnest group of women, suspicious of a retired local man with no family members at the club who came to help out. The working with children checks matrix had made these mums suspicious of anyone who didn’t have kids; the hostility was palpable and a valuable volunteer left feeling unwelcome.
The earnestness to protect children has not stopped there. I am aware of clubs banning parents from taking photos while their children participate in events and activities. As a journalist, I have advised we can publish photos taken in public places, so all they are doing is preventing parents from recording valuable memories. But to no avail, apparently this is what keeping kids safe looks like.
I have also heard of inappropriate touching of young girls and encouraged people to report it to the sports administration, only to be met with ‘that would be tricky, you would have to prove it before you accused them’ and ‘they’ve done such good work for us over the years’.
I am also not sure parents are always the most suitable guardians. Just because someone has their kids participating, doesn’t mean the lonely kid is being watched. Or just because the coach or helper has a child in the group, doesn’t mean they are not going to groom or touch someone else’s child.
Teachers, early childhood educators and governments talk about the process of checks at childcare centres and schools with an air of security. The idea that ‘everyone has a check so we are safe’ has to go.
So if checks aren’t working, what do we do?
First, reduce the administrative load on organisations. The load to administer the checks needs to be done centrally to give the organisations working with children the opportunity to monitor the people working with children not monitor the checks.
We need to ensure we all become the eyes and ears for our children and other vulnerable people around us. Teach everyone what abuse looks like, what are the patterns to look for, what is unacceptable behaviour.
We need to identify and minimise opportunities for abuse. No-one is going to abuse a child on a sports field. It’s the quiet, private places and irregular conversations and contact we need to watch for.
We need to have simple, safe reporting methods in place to take action when we are concerned.
It is hard to report something is not quite right or you have witnessed minor behaviours in a small workplace or community club where everyone knows everyone.
At the moment we have mandatory reporting and process to follow if you have reasonable grounds to suspect a child is at risk of significant harm. But what if you have concerns or something doesn’t seem right or you think it’s only small?
There is little room for quiet concerns, it is call the police or report to the government agency.
We need a system so child protection and the police can monitor and build cases without the heavy handedness of an official report. Portals such as crime stoppers have shown people will report things when it is easy to do.
We have such detailed processes for form filling to work with children, we now need processes for actually working with children.
