Child Safety at
BlueFit
BlueFit’s Commitment to Child Safety
All children and young people have the right to be safe and feel safe. It is our commitment at BlueFit that the safety, wellbeing, and empowerment of children and young people is supported across all of our facilities and services.
We acknowledge the central role we play in upholding this right to safety as a leading provider of sport, recreation, and leisure
services for children, young people, and the wider communities we serve.
BlueFit has a zero tolerance of any form of child abuse.
We will:
- Lead a culture of values, strong governance, and leadership.
- Embed robust screening and recruitment practices, with regular ongoing training and development for our BlueFit team.
- Be proactive in identifying, reporting, and minimising risks.
- Treat seriously all allegations, reports, and safety concerns, in line with our robust policies and procedures.
- Ensure children and young people who are from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, live with a disability or mental illness, or are part of the LGBTQIA+ community are safe, welcomed and included.
- Inspire our children and young people to participate and be involved in decision making.
- Drive continuous improvement, becasuse child safety should never rest.
Our Culture
- Leadership
- Inclusion + diversity
- Strong governance
- Values embedded
- Behaviours upheld
- Strong culture of
reporting
Our Facilities
- Regular monitoring +
improvement - Inclusive
- Physical, online + social
media safety - Patron code of conduct
- Risk Mitigation
Our People
- Public commitment to child
safety - Robust screening +
recruitment - Staff code of conduct
- Continuous training +
development - Dedicated child safety
officer
Our Practice
- Policies
- Procedures
- Complaints handling
Reporting - Risk management
- Children participation in
decision making - Internal + external child safe
- audits
- SALT system
Foundations of our framework
Our Culture
Our culture empowers children and young people to feel safe, included, and valued.
Our Practice
We have robust risk management systems, policies, and procedures. We acknowledge that Child safety is a continuous improvement process, and we are committed to ongoing review and improvement of our processes and systems to ensure we are constantly embedding the strongest possible practices to protect children.
Our People
Our people undergo robust screening when joining the BlueFit team. They are provided with training, development, tools, and support to ensure they are equipped to keep children and young people safe.
Our Facilities
We create environments that reduce the likelihood of harm to children, young people, and those who are vulnerable.
Our Framework in action
Our Culture
Our culture empowers children and young people to feel safe, included, and valued.
- A child safe culture is championed and modelled at all levels of our organisation from the top down and the bottom up.
- BlueFit has made a public commitment to child safety. Our child safe commitment, framework, and policies can be publicly viewed on our website.
- Child Safety is a standard agenda item within all Board meetings, Executive
Leadership, and local centre senior team meetings. - Our Leaders promote sharing good practice and learnings about child safety and wellbeing.
- Child safety forms part of our staff performance appraisals. This includes
how the staff member’s attitudes and behaviours demonstrate their commitment to child safety, child wellbeing and cultural safety. - Leaders and our team members promote a culture of reporting.
- Our people inherently know that child safety is everyone’s responsibility.
Our People
Our people undergo robust screening when joining the BlueFit team. They are provided with ongoing training, development, tools, and support to ensure they are equipped to keep children and young people safe.
- Recruitment, including advertising, referee checks and staff and volunteer pre-employment screening, emphasise child safety and
wellbeing. Child safe screening questions feature within all interview question templates, regardless of the role being applied for. - Robust screening through the recruitment process to ensure each staff member has a valid working with children check and police
clearance prior to employment commencing. - BlueFit has an online induction program that is mandatory for all employees and volunteers to complete prior to commencement. This induction includes a dedicated Child Protection module and role specific inductions such as Learn to Swim which outlines appropriate positioning, teaching methods and behaviours expected of our team when performing their roles.
- Through BlueFit’s unique SALT system, staff qualifications, mandatory training sessions, and working with children checks are
managed. Staff whose qualification or checks have expired, or staff who have not completed training modules cannot be rostered. - BlueFit has a Dedicated Child Protection Person (DCPP) who is responsible for taking action on expressions or reports of concern and also sets out the responsibility of employees, contractors and volunteers regarding child protection.
- A Code of Conduct provides guidelines for staff and volunteers on expected behavioural standards and responsibilities.
- We have a clear organisational chart that demonstrates the roles and responsibilities of all staff when it comes to child safety practices and reporting.
- Regular and ongoing child safe training for all staff regardless of role including how to identify and report any concerns or suspected incidents of abuse or neglect, relevant to each jurisdiction.
Our Practices
We have robust risk management systems, policies, and procedures. We acknowledge that Child safety is a continuous improvement process, and we are committed to ongoing review and improvement of our processes and systems to ensure we are constantly embedding the strongest possible practices to protect children.
- BlueFit has a partnership with Child Safeguard, a leading provider of child safety services and experts in assisting organisations comply with the National Child Safe Standards.
- BlueFit’s unique SALT system tracks staff working with children checks, qualifications and training. The system is also used for reporting incidents and manages risk assessments and ensures senior leaders are alerted immediately of any child safe concerns.
- BlueFit provides opportunities for children and young people to participate in decision-making within our organisation, including in relation to safety issues and risk identification.
- Our robust and publicly available policies ensure staff, patrons, and families are award of our child safe practices. Our child friendly versions help to inform our children and young people.
- BlueFit has wide-ranging practices to ensure reporting any type of child abuse, or suspicions of child abuse can be done with ease and practicality for staff, patrons, children, and members of the community.
Our Facilities
We create environments that reduce the likelihood of harm to children, young people, and those who are vulnerable.
- BlueFit work with our partners to create environments that reduce the likelihood of harm to children, young people, and those who are vulnerable.
- BlueFit has strict supervision policies to reduce the risk of harm to children, this includes specific program related ratios. To enhance safety beyond lifeguard supervision within our aquatic environments, we use artificial intelligence anti drowning technologies.
- We have clear and accessible information for families and communities about BlueFit’s operations and policies, including our Child Safety Policy, Code of Conduct, record keeping practices and complaints and investigation processes.
- All BlueFit facilities implement significant proactive risk minimisation strategies. Each facility undergoes regular risk audits through our extensive SALT system. This system alerts senior leadership of any required actions to ensure risks are always minimised. This includes our child safety risk assessment.
- We provide resources to our communities that educate and aim to minimise and prevent any harm to children within online environments.
Our Commitment to the National Child Safe Standards
BlueFit’s child safe policies, procedures and practices are informed by the National Child Safe Standards. We rely on the National Child Safe Standards as a benchmark to assess the child safe capacity of BlueFit. They not only inform our practices, but they help us to set performance targets, and audit ourselves to ensure we continue to evolve and improve.
While self-auditing is a powerful tool for continuous improvement, BlueFit also has a partnership with Child Safeguard who provides us with external audit services. Child Safeguard assists BlueFit to identify areas for improvement so that we can continue to enhance our practices and remain compliant in accordance with updates to child safety legislation and regulation.
A
BlueFit has a public commitment to child safety. A child safe culture is championed and modelled at all levels of our organisation from the top down and the bottom up. Child safety is everyone’s responsibility at BlueFit.
B
Delivery of regular child safety training, education and support to staff to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to keep children and vulnerable individuals safe, including how to identify and report any concerns or suspected incidents of abuse or neglect.
c
BlueFit provides opportunities for children and young people to participate in decision-making within our organisation, including in relation to safety issues and risk identification.
D
Child safety is promoted throughout all BlueFit programs involving children and young people.
E
Our policies and practices ensure children and young people who are from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, live with
a disability or mental illness, or are part of the LGBTQIA+ community are safe, welcomed and included and can participate in our programs.
F
BlueFit has child friendly versions of our complaint handling process to ensure children know how they can raise a concern. Our robust SALT system ensures our staff deal with any complaint effectively and efficiently.
G
BlueFit has an extensive child safe internal auditing system. Additionally, BlueFit engages third party organisation Child Safeguard to provide us with a regular external child safe audit. Both internal and external audits support our continuous improvement process.
H
Our people undergo robust screening when joining the BlueFit team. They are provided with ongoing training, development, tools, and support to ensure they are equipped to keep children and young people safe. BlueFit also has a dedicated Child Safety Officer who provides additional support.
I
Our robust and publicly available policies ensure staff, patrons, and families are aware of our child safety approach. Our engagement with Child Safeguard provides us with a range of tools and resources to help us monitor and manage compliance with the National Child Safe Standards.
J
All BlueFit facilities implement significant proactive risk minimisation strategies. Each facility undergoes regular risk audits, including child safe audits through our extensive SALT system. This system alerts senior leadership of any required actions to ensure risks are always minimised. We provide resources to our communities that educate and aim to minimise and prevent any harm to children within online environments.
