Culture is vital for the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people.
Cultural safety involves welcoming Aboriginal children and young people, and their families into your organisation, and supporting them to express their culture and enjoy their rights.
Establishing culturally safe environments for Aboriginal children is also a legal requirement under the Child Safe Standards:
Child Safe Standard 1 requires organisations to establish a culturally safe environment in which the diverse and unique identities and experiences of Aboriginal children and young people are respected and valued.
We’ve developed a guide to help you understand cultural safety and what you can do to establish culturally safe environments in your organisation. It includes practical tips and tools that will help you meet the requirements of Child Safe Standard 1 and make your organisation a safer place for children and young people.
Our guidance materials include:
- Understanding cultural safety for Aboriginal children and young people: A guide for implementing Child Safe Standard 1
- Tips for establishing a culturally safe organisation
- Frequently asked questions with Meena Singh, Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People
- Days of importance for Aboriginal communities.
Who the guide is for
While everyone in an organisation plays a part in creating a culturally safe environment, it is a good idea for people with key roles to read this document. These people might include:
- heads of organisations or whoever is ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance with the Child Safe Standards, who may be the CEO, club president, secretary or your board members
- anyone who is interacting with children and young people and is responsible for their safety and wellbeing
- staff and volunteers directly involved in child safety and wellbeing, such as your organisation’s child safety officer
- learning and development staff.
What is in the guide
We’ve developed this guide to support organisations to meet Child Safe Standard 1.
The guide will help you build your understanding of what cultural safety means and why it is important to the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people. It follows an evidence-based approach to establishing a culturally safe environment for Aboriginal children and young people.
The guide also includes practical tools, tips and resources that can support you to meet your requirements under Standard 1.
Jump to further tips and resources.
We recommend you read this resource alongside A guide for creating a Child Safe Organisation. There is a dedicated chapter on Child Safe Standard 1, including how the Standard was developed.
Download the resources
This suite of resources will help you implement Child Safe Standard 1 and establish a culturally safe environment for Aboriginal children and young people.
A guide for implementing Child Safe Standard 1
Download the full guide, which includes tools to help you establish a culturally safe environment in your organisation:
- Understanding cultural safety for Aboriginal children and young people (PDF, 11mb)
- Understanding cultural safety for Aboriginal children and young people (Word, 10mb)
Download the tools individually (we recommend reading the guide above before starting work on these tools):
- Reflection tool 1: Thinking about your own views, beliefs and understanding
- Reflection tool 2: Organisational culture, practice and learning assessment
- Taking action tool: Develop a learning and action plan
- Review and improvement tool: Checking in on progress and planning next steps
Tips for creating a culturally safe environment
There are many ways to create a culturally safe organisation. This resource has some tips and ideas to help you get started.
Tips for creating a culturally safe environment
Frequently asked questions
Meena Singh, Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People answers some frequently asked questions about Aboriginal people and culture.
Frequently asked questions about cultural safety
Days of importance
One way to help people feel their culture and identity is respected is to demonstrate respect for things that matter to them.
This resource highlights key days of importance for Aboriginal children and young people, their families, and communities.