Safety and wellbeing of children and young people

Everyone has the right to feel safe all the time.

Ballarat Community Health (BCH) recognises that children are at special risk of harm and that health organisations need to consider the physical, emotional and cultural safety of children in the provision of services to them and their families.

Our commitment to the safety and wellbeing of children and young people

Ballarat Community Health (BCH) is committed to providing an environment where children and young people are safe and feel safe and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives and to disclose concerns they may have about their safety.

We pride ourselves on being an inclusive organisation and are committed to the cultural safety of Aboriginal children, the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds and to providing a safe environment for children with a disability and children who identify as LGBTIQA+.

Please refer to our Statement of Commitment to the safety and wellbeing of children and young people for further information about our commitments and practices.

BCH is committed to maintaining policies, procedures and practices that are compliant with these standards as outlined in our Safety and wellbeing of children and young people Policy.

Why are Child Safe Standards important?

The Victorian Government has introduced the Child Safe Standards (the Standards) which set a minimum standard for all organisations that provide services to children, to make sure they have appropriate strategies, policies and practices in place to ensure children are protected from harm and abuse.

Please refer to the attached Information-for-Parents-and-Carers-about-the-Child-Safe-Standards.

Questions or concerns about Child Safe matters

If a child is at immediate risk and police or medical assistance is required, call 000 and alert the site or program manager.

All staff at our BCH sites should be clearly identifiable with a Ballarat Community Health name tag and lanyard. You can ask someone to show you their identification at any time – and you can encourage your children to also ask to see this.

If you are concerned for the safety and wellbeing of a child or young person whilst attending BCH services please speak to member of our team or contact us on people&[email protected] or speak to our Executive Manager, People and Culture, Ellery Hickson on (03) 5338 0554.

Other comments, complaints or complements can also be provided over the phone, in person or via our Feedback form.

How you can help

We are constantly working to improve our services, so we’d love to hear from you if you have ideas about how we can improve our approach to child safety. Please speak to one our service team or submit your ideas on our Feedback form.

For other general matters please contact us on (03) 5338 4500 or email to [email protected]