Submission to Royal Commission: Child safe institutions

This APS submission, made in 2013, is in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Issues Paper 3 relating to child safe institutions.

The APS contends that society has an obligation to protect children and young people from harm, and acknowledges that child safe institutions are fundamental for individual and community wellbeing. In efforts to prevent child sexual abuse, the APS supports a holistic approach that comprises prevention activities at multiple levels including the individual child, family and parent, perpetrator, institutional and environmental levels.

This submission focuses on activities at the institutional level and in particular on the following key issues: effective screening and recruitment; identification of situational risks and indicators; creating positive institutional cultures, in particular facilitating disclosure; and raising community awareness.

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