New Actions
Important Child Safety Updates
For: Principals
Due: Now
Contact: childprotection@dow.catholic.edu.au
First notice
Office of the Children’s Guardian – Child Safe Schools
CEDoW is unwavering in our commitment to create and maintain Child Safe Cultures in our schools. In addition, CEDoW has legal and compliance obligations to NESA and the Office of the Children’s Guardian, to demonstrate how we proactively prevent children from being harmed in our context, and to respond robustly if we become aware that harm has occurred.
The Office of the Children’s Guardian has developed a free online tool - Child Safe Self-Assessment - to support organisations improve their child safe practice. The OCG also has a 3-minute video explaining how the self-assessment tool works.
To ensure organisations, like schools, are complying with the Child Safe Scheme, legislated by the Children’s Guardian Act, 2019, the Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) have recently begun to conduct audits of organisations, in a similar manner to Safe Work.
Organisations who have completed the OCG Child Safe Self-Assessment will not be prioritised for audit.
Action: Principals should plan to undertake the OCG Child Safe Self-Assessment with members of the pastoral / leadership team and the allocated CEDoW Child Safety Advisor, before the end of 2025.
Student sexualised behaviours
CEDoW is currently revising the Student Sexualised Behaviour Procedure to ensure it reflects current practice, aligns to intersecting policy and procedure updates and is informed by the changing landscape of behaviours experienced in schools. The draft procedure will be distributed for consultation during Term 3, 2025.
A comprehensive Information Sheet will be published in tandem with the procedure to support schools to operationalise the procedure.
Immediate changes to CEDoW Child Safety
Since the introduction of CEDoW Responding to student sexualised behaviour framework, all Compass sexualised behaviour records have triggered a notification to the CEDoW Child Safety and Professional Services (CSaPS) team for review and responding advice.
This was intended to provide specialist support to schools while they adjusted to the new way of working. In recognition of the maturity achieved in the past 5 years, moving forward, CSaPS will only review medium and high-level student sexualised behaviour records.
School leaders are responsible for ensuring that internal processes are in place to escalate sexualised behaviours for review and responses, especially Low behaviours, which continue to notify to CSaPS but are no longer reviewed by CSaPS.
All staff in every school can contact the Child Safety team for advice on specific matters if they are unsure of the level of concern. You can do this by directly contacting the child safety advisor allocated to your school or by contacting the team on childprotection@dow.catholic.edu.au or 02 4250 9555
Action: School leaders need to ensure their internal processes for escalating student sexualised behaviour concerns are robust and current.
CSaPS recommends the following:
- Low level student sexualised behaviours automatically notify to a middle leader or above, who will review the entry to ensure it has been correctly identified as low
- A ‘data rule’ be put on Low level sexualised behaviours, to automatically notify to a middle leader or above, who will review patterns of behaviour that may require an elevated response
For IT support to implement these, or other systems, please contact compass@dow.catholic.edu.au.
If your school requires additional training in recognising and recording student sexualised behaviours, please contact either your allocated Child Safety Advisor or Wellbeing and Student Support (WSS) pod leader to arrange for training.
National Child Protection Week 2025 – 7-13 September 2025
National Child Protection Week 2025 is just around the corner! This year’s theme, “Every Conversation Matters: Shifting Conversation to Action,” is about taking the next step beyond dialogue—turning meaningful conversations into real change at individual, community, and national levels.
Action: School leaders should start to think about how you can lead the shift from Child Safe conversations into actions.
Please see the following websites for ideas on activities and initiatives:
Think u know - child exploitation
National Office of Child Safety
Daniel Morcombe Foundation - Australia's biggest child safety lesson
Emerging Mind PERCS conversation guide
Guide to responding to image-based abuse involving AI deepfakes
2025 System-Wide Strategic Professional Learning
For: Principals and Leadership Teams
Due: Now
Contact: Anna Jones at annalouise.jones@dow.catholic.edu.au
First notice
Continuing Your Professional Learning Journey
Action: Following the System-Wide Professional Learning Day 1 on 16 June 2025, all participants are encouraged to advance to the Collaborative Complex Problem Solving Stage 2: validity testing. This critical next step will enable you to test your problem cause hypotheses and refine your problem identification, ensuring you explore your school's current context with greater depth and maximise the benefits of the 5-stage methodology.
Your dedication to this process will significantly enhance the impact and value of System Day 2 on 11 August 2025 for both you and your team.
Coaching Support Opportunity
We're pleased to announce that coaching sessions with Dr Jacqui Patuawa have commenced this week for the following schools:
St Francis, Edmondson Park
St Benedict's, Oran Park
St Paul's, Albion Park
St Justin's, Oran Park
Our Lady Help of Christians, Rosemeadow
Support for All Schools
Every school in our system is able to receive support. For schools not participating in direct coaching sessions, we are currently reviewing your 'thinking tools' and will provide personalised feedback where required. For additional support or guidance, please reach out to your HCCSI or contact Anna Jones directly.