Dominican Education Australia has successfully embedded safeguarding within its culture, demonstrating a high level of commitment and understanding of the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards. Source: ACSL.
Australian Catholic Safeguarding recently undertook a comprehensive safeguarding audit of DEA, which involved evaluating the documents, policies and procedures in place both at the governance level and within the DEA Schools.
DEA is the first Ministerial Public Juridic Person to undertake an audit against the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards, which align with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, and include accountability commitments made by Catholic leadership following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
DEA undertook a self-assessment which was followed by a review, discussions with the Trustees, the DEA leadership and visits to five DEA Schools in South Australia and New South Wales.
Participating schools were Cabra Dominican College, St Dominic’s Priory College, St Mary’s College, St Lucy’s School and Santa Sabina College.
ACSL also recognised the DEA-based Victorian Ministry of Siena College, which has been assessed as meeting the NCSS by the Victorian Catholic Education Authority
ACSL chief executive Ursula Stephens commended DEA for the way in which safeguarding is built into the curriculum of the DEA schools and the professionalism of staff in their commitment to protecting and respecting the rights of their students.
Fundamental to the DEA safeguarding approach, Dr Stephens said, is an awareness of trauma-informed care and the encouragement of personal responsibility for others.
“The education sector is highly regulated and the ACSL audit framework takes this into account by moving beyond a compliance focus to one that measures an organisation’s maturity in safeguarding responses,” Dr Stephens said.
“We are impressed by the ways in which DEA is focused on student wellbeing and accommodating the diverse needs of students within their schools.”
Dr David Treanor, director of safeguarding and compliance with ACSL, said the audit “identified some areas for improvement, resulting in minor recommendations that will further embed safeguarding in all aspects of Dominican Education Australia Ministries”.
All recommendations have been accepted by DEA and will be implemented in the next 12 months, along with continued vigilance and awareness of emerging risks.
View the DEA audit report on ACSL’s website.
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Dominican Education Australia Ministries Committed to a strong safeguarding culture (ACSL)
