Child Safe Information

St Brigid’s College holds the care, safety and wellbeing of children and young people as a central and fundamental responsibility. Central to the mission of our Catholic schools in Horsham – St Brigid’s College and Ss Michael & John’s Primary School - is an absolute commitment to fostering the dignity, self-esteem and integrity of children and young people and providing them with a safe, supportive and enriching environment to develop spiritually, physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially.

The Child Safe Standards came into effect in July 2022 and are a vital part of what we do here at St Brigid's College. Each newsletter we will look at a standard in closer detail.

This standard focuses on ensuring that people who work with children and young people are suitable and supported to act in a child safe way. Schools should make child safety and wellbeing a key consideration when recruiting staff and volunteers.

As part of this standard, schools must:

develop robust procedures to ensure only suitable people work with children
supervise staff and volunteers to ensure they prioritise the safety of children
support staff and volunteers to understand their responsibilities.

All people who work with students at St Brigid's College are required to sign and adhere to our Safeguarding Children and Young People: Code of Conduct. Our staff undertake regular training and professional development that covers:

the Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
the Child Safety Code of Conduct
how to contribute to identifying, removing or reducing risks
recordkeeping and information sharing requirements
school values and philosophy
procedures for managing complaints
privacy and reporting protocols.

Our Child Safety Policy details and affirms the standards of behaviour expected for members of the St Brigid’s College community. All of our policies, including the College Diversity and Equity Policy, can be found the Policies page on our school website. You can contact the Front Office if you have any queries relating to child safe practices, or any other matters.

Wellbeing sessions with Josh King

Yesterday Year 9 and 10 students participated in a workshop with NRL Melbourne Storm player, Josh King. With a focus on mental health and resilience, Josh spoke about his experience as an athlete, as well as his career journey to become a qualified electrician. It was great for the students to hear from Josh, who grew up in a small town, and hear him share the strategies he uses to support his wellbeing.

Thank you to Josh, and to the Minerals Council and the Wimmera Southern Mallee LLEN, for providing this opportunity for our students.

Healthy Study Habits

We remind families of our partnership with SchoolTV, a leading online mental health and wellbeing platform designed to proactively support families and students and strengthen parent-school partnerships.

This Special Report, Healthy Study Habits, has tools and resources for families that will help you support your young person as they begin preparing for end of year exams.

View the report here:

https://stbc.vic.schooltv.me/.../special-report-healthy...

Social Media Safety

Parents and carers play an important role in supporting their children to be safe online and on social media. You can help your children safely navigate their digital world and educate them to avoid harmful online experiences. You can explore websites, games, apps and social media together and set some rules and boundaries.

Your support and guidance can give your children the knowledge to make sound decisions online and confidence to ask for help when they need it. It is also important to stay informed about online safety.

The Department of Education recognises this important issue and has developed fact sheets about supports to help keep students safe online and what to do if they are involved in an online incident.

The fact sheets contain links to evidence-based information on supporting positive and safe online experiences, signs a child or young person might need support, what to do if something unsafe happens online, and where to reach out to for more support.

To access the fact sheets, refer to the Safe Socials webpage. The fact sheets are available in 19 community languages.

The government is also launching public consultation on age limits for social media.

You and your children can share your experiences to inform proposed changes via an online survey, before 5 pm on Friday 1 November 2024. For more information on the survey and to take part, refer to Proposed changes to social media age limits on the Engage Victoria website.

If you have any queries about this information, you can contact the department by email: bullystoppers@education.vic.gov.au

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