What to expect?
What to Expect
What is a Child Safety Decision-Making Model?
Child Safety Decision Making Model
Why are there 4 different types of assessments?
What is an assessment?
What are the steps of an assessment?
How can you implement assessment outcomes?
Implementing assessment outcomes
How do you close, appeal and review responses?
Closing a response
Appealing a Response
Reviewing a Response
Do you work for an organisation?
What are governance issues?
Do we care about people?
Do we really care about people?
Do we care about you?
Do we really care about you?
What are the principles behind response strategies?
Principles behind the Response Process
Do you want to keep learning?
Further education options

Purpose of a Child Safety Assessment

The purpose of the Child Safety Needs Assessment is to identify the safety & well-being needs of a child(ren, and determine how the organisation can assist the child’s family, school and/or community to provide for the child’s identified needs. 

Safety and Wellbeing

Safety and wellbeing for a child and or children is based one having the resources to deal with the challenges that they meet.  If they do not have, or are not provided with the relevant resources then their safety and wellbeing will be at risk.

Safety and wellbeing is a much lower standard than of a standard of child abuse, harm or criminality. So it allows organisations to assist with a child and/or family at an early stage.

Definition of Well-being

Dodge, R., Daly, A., Huyton, J., & Sanders, L. (2012). The challenge of defining wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(3), 222-235. Doi:10.5502/ijw.v2i3.

Universal Application. One of the true assets of this definition of well-being is its universal nature.  It can be applied to all individual children, regardless of their age, culture and gender.  Wellbeing is attainable for any child, and it is not dependent on any one cultural parenting style.  

Subjective well-being. An important aspect of well-being is that it is subjective, that is, it is based on and influenced by the child’s beliefs and feelings.  Therefore, while two children may journey the same life experiences, the impact on their wellbeing can be very different.

Safety and Wellbeing needs. Children have needs that require to be provided for their safety and well-being. These include:

  • Physical needs.  Children require adequate food and living conditions.
  • Social needs.  Child require the opportunity to develop appropriate social skills.
  • Supervision needs.  Appropriate adult supervision to provide for the safety of the child.
  • Emotional needs.  Children need to feel loved, have a positive self-esteem and to feel significant in their family. 
  • Educational needs.  Children to be provided with relevant educational support and opportunities.