Children and Young People's Safety Project

Investigators

Professor Daryl Higgins, Douglas Russell

Funding

Various youth-serving organisations that used the surveys to monitor their culture of child safety.

Aims

The study aimed to:

• Help participating organisations identify characteristics of children and young people who were feeling unsafe
• Help participating organisations measure the capabilities of staff and volunteers to safeguard children and young people
• Use the data to investigate trends and broad results across all participating organisations, inform further research, policy development and child-safe strategies

Background

Children and young people are at risk of sexual abuse within schools, residential care units, sporting teams, holiday camps and other youth-serving organisations. This was highlighted by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013-17).

ACU Institute of Child Protection Studies (with partners from Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University) completed a series of studies from 2015 to 2017 to explore children's experiences of safety within organisations. The studies also gauged their perceptions of the way that adults and institutions were acting to keep them safe and respond when they were harmed. From these studies the Australian Safe Kids and Young People Survey was developed.

Children's Safety Study

The Institute created the Children's Safety Survey to investigate children and young people's wellbeing, as well as their perceptions of safety within a participating organisation. The Children's Safety Survey incorporated the Australian Safe Kids and Young People Survey.

Safeguarding Capabilities in Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Survey

The Institute created the Safeguarding Capabilities in Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Survey in 2017-2018. The Safeguarding Capabilities Survey measures the capabilities of an organisation's workforce - staff and volunteers - to prevent and respond appropriately to child sexual abuse.

The survey is an empirical measure which youth-serving organisations used to monitor staff awareness of policies and child-safe culture, knowledge, confidence and attitudes. The measure were also used by researchers around the world to collect data and support the work that organisations were doing to keep children safe.

Real-time data

Organisations that signed up for one or both surveys got access to their results as soon as 10 participants had taken part. Results were visualised on a real-time online dashboard.

Surveys in action

We used both of our surveys to help Hockey Australia assess the impact of safeguarding strategies rolled out in 2023 across Australia. This project was funded by National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse.

The findings and implications, presented at a webinar on 20 February 2025, may be of interest to all sporting codes:

Watch webinar

Community impact

Findings from the Children's Safety Survey helped participating organisations identify characteristics of children and young people who were feeling unsafe and identify child-safe strategies to support children and young people.

Findings from the Safeguarding Capabilities Survey helped participating organisations to understand the capabilities of staff and volunteers to safeguard children and young people and identify policies, procedures and training programs to better equip staff and volunteers.

Outputs

Russell, D.H., & Higgins, D. J. (2021). Children and young people's safety: 2018-2020 Report. Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University. https://doi.org/10.26199/sjap-kn57

Russell, R. H. & Higgins, D. J. (2023). Friends and safeguarding: Young people's views about safety and to whom they would share safety concerns. Child Abuse Review (32)3, Special Issue: Youthscapes: Friends and peers as avenues of support as well as harm. May/June 2023, e2825. https://doi.org/10.1002/car.2825

Russell, D., & Higgins, D. (2019). Safeguarding capabilities in preventing child sexual abuse: Exploratory factor analysis of a scale measuring safeguarding capabilities in youth-serving organizations' workers. Child Maltreatment. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559519870253

Russell, D. H., Anderson, J. R., Riggs, D. W., Ullman, J., & Higgins, D. J. (2020). Gender diversity and safety climate perceptions in schools and other youth-serving organisations. Children and Youth Services Review, 117, 105334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105334.

Russell, D., Higgins, D. J., & Stewart, J. (2019). Safety survey data from Victorian youth-serving organisations: Survey data from workers, young people, and organisational leaders' self-reflections after implementing the Victorian Child Safe Standards. https://doi.org/10.26199/5e27ad866a7c7

Russell, D.H., Stewart, J. & Higgins, D.J. (2022). Safeguarding in Church: Children and Young People's Perceptions of Safety in Religious and Other Faith-Based Settings. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605221117548

Contact

For more information, contact icps@acu.edu.au.