Child Safety @TCC

At Trinity College Colac, we hold the care, safety and wellbeing of children and young people as a central and fundamental responsibility of our school.

We are committed to: 

• zero tolerance of child abuse
• listening to and empowering children and young people 
• keeping children and young people safe. 

As part of meeting our legislative requirements, Trinity College continues to look for ways to refine our practices to make our schools a safe place for all our students. 

• We have two designated Child Safety Officers: Cheryl Pefanis (Deputy Principal) and Jenny Keast (Compliance Officer) whose main role is to develop a child safe culture at Trinity College. The Child Safety Officers can be contacted at Trinity College or via a designated email address (safety@tcc.vic.edu.au) to report any incident where a child may be in danger or has been in danger. 
• All staff, volunteers and contractors are required to complete and adhere to a Child Safe Code of Conduct. 
• All our staff undertake annual training on the Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse. 
• Our staff have been trained in the procedures for responding to and reporting allegations of suspected child abuse, with ongoing training occurring throughout the year. 
• Our staff complete risk assessments for all excursions and incursions that specifically deal with keeping students safe on and off the school premises. 
• We constantly review our child safety risk assessments, looking for ways to improve the risk controls of child safety in our school. 

Please feel free to review our Child Safety policies and procedures located on our Trinity College Colac website (under the tab ‘Child Safety’). In addition, the following website offers parents and carers valuable information on Child Safety: PROTECT (education.vic.gov.au)

Child Safety Team

As a result of our commitment to keeping our students safe, Trinity College Colac has a Child Safety Team that oversees the embedding of a child safe culture at our school. The Deputy Principal leads the Child Safety Team, which comprises of the following groups: 

• Child Safety Officers: Deputy Principal and the Compliance Officer
• Leadership Team, which includes the Principal, Deputy Principal, Director of Faith and Mission, Director of Learning, Director of Students, Business Manager and Development and Communications Leader
• Wellbeing Action Team comprising of the Director of Students, Year Level Coordinators, Wellbeing Counsellors and Officers, NCCD Leader and Learning Diversity Leader. 

These teams provide authoritative advice on the safety of the young people in our care and will

• act as a source of support, advice and expertise to staff on matters of child safety. 
• lead the development of the school’s child safety culture, including providing coordination in communicating, implementing, monitoring, enhancing and reporting on strategies to embed a culture of child safety. 
• document, collate and maintain all records pertaining to reporting child safety issues.