Glen Education Centre Road

Working in Partnership with Children and Families

Jacqui Chilvers, Early Childhood Teacher

Child Safe Standard 7 - Processes for complaints and concerns are child focused

In complying with Child Safe Standard 7, an organisation must, at a minimum, ensure:

7.1 The organisation has an accessible, child focused complaint handling policy which clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of leadership, staff and volunteers, approaches to dealing with different types of complaints, breaches of relevant policies or the Code of Conduct and obligations to act and report.
7.2 Effective complaint handling processes are understood by children and young people, families, staff and volunteers, and are culturally safe.
7.3 Complaints are taken seriously, and responded to promptly and thoroughly.
7.4 The organisation has policies and procedures in place that address reporting of complaints and concerns to relevant authorities, whether or not the law requires reporting, and co-operates with law enforcement.
7.5 Reporting, privacy and employment law obligations are met.

At Glen Education we have policies in place to help guide and support educators in how to respond to concerns and complaints from families.

Glen Centre Road Kindergarten is committed to:

providing an environment of mutual respect and open communication, by fostering relationships with our families and community, where the expression of opinions is encouraged by all.
complying with all legislative and statutory requirements
ensuring we work with individuals to deal with disputes, complaints and complainants with fairness, respect and equity.
promoting the ongoing establishment and refinement of fair and just mechanisms to promote prompt, efficient and satisfactory resolution of complaints and grievances
ensuring we are maintaining confidentiality at all times

By forming positive relationships with our families, we aim to identify, prevent and address potential concerns before they become formal complaints/grievances. Complaints or grievances may be received from anyone who comes in contact with the our Kindergarten service, including parents/guardians, volunteers, students, members of the local community and other agencies.

Complaints and grievances are afforded with the fairness, respect and equity and deserve, and concerns always are taken seriously and handled promptly. Our organisation has a child focused complaint handling policy so children’s well-being is at the centre of our response.

One example of how a concern raised by a family would be responded to would be when a parent voiced their worries about children playing outside in wet/cold weather.

We started our process, and listened to the concerns of the parent that their child could get sick if they played outside in cold weather. We worked with the parent to fully understand their concerns through numerous discussions. We also spoke with the parent about the benefit to children in participating in this kind of play.

These discussions led us to providing additional wet weather gear (umbrellas, spare clothes and spare gumboots as well as coat racks and gumboot storage at kinder). We were able to reassure the parent that we would support their child to put on/take off their warm clothing and to get changed quickly if their clothes became wet. This also gave us the opportunity to advocate for children’s access to nature, play and enriching experiences, whilst acknowledging, respecting and including the family’s perspective.

For further information about Glen Educations Complaints and Grievances Policy refer to the website:

https://gleneducation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Complaints-and-Grievances-Policy.pdf