Child Protection and Child Safety, Our Commitment

Sparkle Centre is a child safe organisation providing Specialised Substitute Residential Care (SSRC) and other day-program services to children. We are committed to delivering our services in a manner that upholds our legislative, regulatory, ethical and moral obligations to provide the children and young people in our care with a safe and nurturing environment, tailored to their individual support needs.

We are committed to supporting the identity, health, development, voice and dignity of every child and young person in our care, in an environment that is free from violence, abuse, exploitation and harm.

The safety, welfare and wellbeing of children and young people is our focus and absolute priority, and we foster a culture of safety and vigilance for every child and young person by embedding the 10 Child Safe Standards in our organisation’s operations and governance.

The safety, welfare and wellbeing of children and young people is our focus and absolute priority, and we foster a culture of safety and vigilance for every child and young person by embedding the 10 Child Safe Standards in our organisation’s operations and governance.

Sparkle Centre’s application of the Child Safe Standards

  • We have a Child Safe Code of Conduct with clear commitments and behavioural standards for our staff and those we engage
  • We require our leaders to commit to embedding the Child Safe Standards in every aspect of Sparkle’s service delivery, governance and culture
  • We have clear policies and procedures that detail how Sparkle must meet its child protection and child safe obligations across the organisation
  • We hold the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children in our care as the most important factor in our organisation’s decision-making
  • We embed a strong culture of reporting which requires and supports any person engaged with us to immediately report any child protection or child safety concerns
  • We train our employees on their obligations under various legislation for the protection and safeguarding of children, and the organisational procedure for escalating concerns within Sparkle
  • We take complaints about child safety matters seriously and respond promptly to assess them
  • We implement governance systems for accountability on our handling of child protection and child safe matters
  • Children’s participation is embedded in Sparkle’s practice from the point of intake
  • We are committed to supporting a child’s dignity of choice in all reasonable circumstances in day-to-day decisions affecting them, and in connection with long-term planning and goals
  • Children are given information about how to complain about our services, and we must respond promptly to assess their complaint
  • Children are given information about how their workers must interact with them and are supported to complain if this standard is not upheld
  • We are committed to creating opportunities for children to be including in organisational decision-making in accordance with the governance policy
    Families and communities are informed and involved
  • Families are the primary decision-makers in the child’s life, and Sparkle partners with families to support the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children and their family
  • Families receive information about Sparkle’s operations and governance
  • We provide our policies and procedures (including the Child Safe Code of Conduct) to parents and carers
  • We are committed to developing meaningful relationships with families and significant others in the life of children in our care
  • We believe open communication with families is essential to delivering our services to the children in our care, and we are committed to working with families and clearly reflecting their views about the care of their children
  • Families are a core part of the child’s care team and are invited to work collaboratively with Sparkle staff in the planning of their child’s services
  • We provide consistent, nurturing care to children having regard to their unique support needs
  • Our activities and services are adapted to support the inclusion of all children
  • We are committed to ensuring the diverse needs, abilities and backgrounds of children are identified and respected, and value of treating them fairly and equitably is embedded in our culture
  • We are responsive to the cultural care and support needs of children and families from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
    We are committed to engaging a diverse workforce
  • Our workers are supported to identify and respond to indicators or vulnerability to harm
  • Our recruitment processes include robust suitability assessments and probity checks for all applicants and personnel
  • Our management personnel are trained in child safe recruitment practices
  • Our employees are required to participate in regular formal supervision with their manager, which includes assessment of their performance and suitability
  • Our employees participate in wellbeing supports to reduce the risk of vicarious traumatisation or burnout leading to child safety incidents
  • We have a zero-tolerance of child abuse
  • All complaints or allegations are taken seriously, regardless of how the information is received, and must be responded to promptly in accordance with procedure
  • The paramount consideration in responding to complaints is the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children
  • We will comply with our obligation to notify reportable allegations against our employees to the Reportable Conduct Scheme at the Office of the Children’s Guardian within 7 business days
  • We will make reports to the police about any allegations of a child-abuse offence
  • We will make a report to the Child Protection Helpline if we believe a child is at risk of significant harm
  • We have a mechanism on our website for members of the public to raise child protection, child safety or service delivery concerns
  • We require our workers to complete mandatory ongoing education and trainings
  • We ensure our training provides workers with the knowledge and skills to prevent, identify and response to abuse and risk of harm to children
  • We ensure workers involved in high-level decision-making are given more advanced training
  • We support attendance at conferences and other forums about child safe practices and service delivery
  • We have clear behaviours standards and expectations for workers interacting with children in physical and online environments
  • We require risk assessments to be completed in areas where adults have the opportunity interact with children outside the usual care environment
  • We prioritise adaptation of physical environments to support natural lines of sight while respecting a child’s right to privacy
  • We are mindful that supporting children with personal care needs carries a higher risk of vulnerability for children, and Sparkle has clear procedures to guide practice in these areas
  • We require our workers to properly supervise children who are accessing online environments and to work with children and their families to build protective factors against sexual exploitation, unsafe online behaviour, cyberbullying, sexting etc
  • We ensure that our homes and care environments are properly, safely and hygienically maintained and children are transported in safely with any necessary restraints properly installed
  • We undertake placement matching assessments to identify and mitigate any risks to children in our care
  • We maintains a culture of continuous improvement to ensure policies and procedures are best practice and responsive to the needs and environments of the children and families engaged with our service
  • We embed processes for consideration of review of our policies and procedures following any incident, complaint or allegation
  • We requires critical incidents and formally reviewed to identify the root cause of the critical incident and to identify any areas our policies and procedures may be strengthened for the protection of children in our care into the future
  • We actively engages children and families in opportunities for service delivery feedback throughout and at the conclusion of services
  • We maintain a suite of policies and procedures required to comply with the SSRC Code of Practice at Schedule 4 of the Children’s Guardian Regulation 2022
  • Our policies and procedures embed the Child Safe Standards across every aspect of service delivery
  • Our workers are required to commit to, and adhere to, our policies and procedures in all aspects of their work
  • We ensure that all workers are inducted into our policies and procedures and keeps records of these processes