Safeguarding Children

Our Commitment
Resources

Our Commitment

Catholic Education Diocese of Cairns is actively committed to fostering communities of safeguarding that recognise and uphold the dignity and rights of all children. We encourage open communication whereby families and communities are informed of relevant issues and participate in decisions about the safety of children.

It is particularly important to us to look for avenues to empower children to have a say and be listened to. We actively seek to become and remain informed of the causes and signs of child abuse and neglect. When we receive information about concerns or witness any matter relating to abuse of a child, we respond appropriately and report any such concerns to the appropriate authority. This includes contacting the police immediately where there may be immediate risk of harm to any person, especially a child.

Every person within Cairns Catholic Education who comes into contact, or works, with children seeks to uphold the dignity of all children and commits to establishing safe and supportive relationships. Cairns Catholic Education has documented policies and procedures to reduce risks to children and build a strong culture of safeguarding. All priests, brothers, sisters, staff and volunteers are expected to follow these policies and procedures and contribute to the culture of care and protection of all children. Each school has at least two Student Protection Contacts to whom students can report any inappropriate staff conduct towards a student/s that they feel is inappropriate.  

We plan, organise and review all activities involving children, proactively considering potential risks and strive to ensure risks are reduced, and eliminated where possible. Everyone is encouraged to communicate any area of concern or where you think our approach may need improvement. Anyone who brings forward a suspicion, concerns, knowledge or allegation of current or past abuse of a child to Cairns Catholic Education will be responded to sensitively, respectfully, actively and in a timely manner, in line with our lawful obligations and our own Complaints Handling Policy. We regularly undertake internal and external auditing of our safeguarding policies and practices to make sure that they always support a culture and practice that puts the safety of children at the centre of our thinking and action.

We listen to the voices of children as we constantly strive to remain vigilant and make improvements.

Criminal offences include:

• Failure to Report Offence:  all adults must report sexual offending against children to the police unless they have a reasonable excuse (i.e. the offence has already been reported).  
• Failure to Protect Offence: adults in an institutional setting (e.g. a school, church or sporting club) must protect children from the risk of a sexual offence being committed against them.  The law attaches a criminal penalty to wilful or negligent failures to do so.

Children need the adults around them to take action to protect them from sexual abuse.  The new offences target behaviour that ignores or hides the sexual abuse of children. 

Resources

Support, information and advice for victims is available from:

• Victim Assist Queensland
• Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Wellbeing Services
• Legal Aid Queensland and other legal services

Find more information about:

• protecting children and supporting victims of child sexual abuse
• child protection from the Queensland Police
• when you can report to Child Safety Services.

Documents

Websites

Office of the eSafety Commissioner

Family and Child Connect

Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – Final Report

Student Protection Contacts

A Student Protection Contact is one of at least two people nominated in each school, in compliance with the Education (Accreditation of Non-State Schools) Regulation 2017 (regulation 16 (3)), to whom a student can report behaviour by a staff member that the student considers inappropriate.

The Principal is always one of the school’s nominated Student Protection Contacts.  Other Student Protection Contacts are selected based on the Principal’s assessment of their appropriateness for the role, taking into consideration their position within the school, availability, skills and willingness to participate in specialised training.

• Good Counsel College, Innisfail
• Good Counsel Primary School, Innisfail
• Holy Cross School, Trinity Park
• Holy Spirit College, Cooktown
• Holy Spirit College, Edmonton
• Holy Spirit College, Manoora
• MacKillop Catholic College, Mount Peter
• Mother of Good Counsel School, North Cairns
• Mount St Bernard College, Herberton
• Newman Catholic College, Smithfield
• Our Lady Help of Christians School, Earlville
• Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School, Thursday Island
• St Andrew’s Catholic College, Redlynch
• St Anthony’s School, Dimbulah
• St Augustine’s College, Parramatta Park
• St Augustine’s School, Mossman
• St Clare’s School, Tully
• St Francis Xavier’s School, Manunda
• St Gerard Majella School, Woree
• St John’s School, Silkwood
• St Joseph’s Parish School, Weipa
• St Joseph’s School, Atherton
• St Joseph’s School, Parramatta Park
• St Mary’s Catholic College, Woree
• St Michael’s School, Gordonvale
• St Monica’s College, Cairns City
• St Rita’s School, Babinda
• St Rita’s School, South Johnstone
• St Stephen’s Catholic College, Mareeba
• St Teresa’s School, Ravenshoe
• St Therese’s School, Bentley Park
• St Thomas’s School, Mareeba

School Student Protection Contacts