The importance of child safety and wellbeing is embedded in our organisational leadership, governance, and culture. We aim to create an environment where all children and young people are valued and feel safe.
This policy reflects our commitment to:
- The National Principles for Child Safe Organisations
- the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework
- CSIRO’s legal obligations in relation to activities involving working with children and young people.
CSIRO is committed to all the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. The key principles for this policy include but are not limited to:
- Ensuring all children and young people are valued and treated fairly, regardless of ethnicity, culture, sex, gender, social, economic, religion and ability.
- Ensuring children and young people are listened to and any concerns that they or their families or guardians raise are acted upon.
- Ensuring children and young people involved in activities and programs know what they can do if they feel unsafe.
- Ensuring children, young people and their families know their rights and how to access the complaints procedures available to them.
- Building and maintaining a child safe culture and environment.
- Recognising children’s rights and interests.
- Ensuring all our staff are aware of, and comply with, relevant requirements.
- Providing support and assistance to staff who report incidents under this policy.
- Providing support and assistance to children/families that may have been impacted.
CSIRO supports this policy by:
- Requiring all staff and affiliates treat all children and young people with respect and act in accordance with CSIRO Code of Conduct and CSIRO Values.
- Ensuring that staff working with children, or who encounter children and young people, adhere to the child safe protection behaviours.
- Providing training for all CSIRO staff, affiliates, and volunteers who work with children or young people.
- Tailoring recruitment practices to ensure only the most suitable and appropriate people are hired by CSIRO to work with children and young people.
- Undertaking a risk-based approach for all programs and activities involving work, or potential work, with children and young people to mitigate and minimise any harm to children. This includes completing and approving Child Safety Activity Risk Assessments, conducting an annual enterprise risk assessment to inform the Organisation’s risk profile and identifying any child protection obligations of third parties.
- Requiring third parties, and their staff/sub-contractors, contracted to work with children and young people to comply with this policy.
- Monitoring compliance with the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework and relevant legislation to promote the establishment and maintenance of a child safe environment.
- Having a rigorous response to safeguarding concerns, complaints or disclosures. All safeguarding concerns must be reported according to state and territory legislation and notified to the Child Safe Office childsafeofficer@csiro.au.
Information and privacy
CSIRO handles all information including personal information in accordance with the applicable laws, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), applicable child safety legislation and discrimination legislation.
For more information on related child safety legislation the Australian Institute of Family Studies provides a brief overview of child protection legislation across state and territory jurisdictions in Australia.
The CSIRO Privacy Policy outlines how your personal information will be handled, including details about how you can seek access or correction of the personal information we hold about you, how you can complain about a breach, and how we will deal with the complaint. If you require further information on how your personal information will be handled, please contact privacy@csiro.au.
Review of the Child Safe Policy
This policy and the associated guidelines will be reviewed every two years and updated as required, including in relation to any relevant legislative changes. We value community feedback on this policy. Feedback and suggestion can be provided by emailing childsafepolicy@csiro.au