This week marks National Child Protection Week – a valuable platform to spread the important message far and wide that ‘every child, in every community, needs a fair go.’
All children have a basic right to feel safe and supported. It’s a sad fact that today, there are many young people who are unable to thrive because their basic needs and rights are not being met and they are not safe and supported.
A report by The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealed that 1 in 32 children (174,700) in the nation received child protection services in 2019-2020 and there were more than 486 thousand reports of abuse and neglect made to child protection authorities.
This year, the campaign for National Child Protection Week draws our attention to what we can do to help children grow up safely and in a supportive environment.
The community has a pivotal role to play in preventing child abuse and neglect and together, we can significantly help reduce the impacts on children and young people.
As a community-based organisation, it is our mission at Constable Care Foundation to keep children and young people safe through creative harm-prevention programs and we are committed to making a difference to the lives of those who take part.
Early education about protective behaviours and helping children understand their own emotional responses to situations is an effective way to introduce safe and acceptable conduct.
Aimed at students from Kindy through to Year 3, Fun Scary is our puppet show performance which introduces the concept of protective behaviours in a fun, engaging and non-threatening way.
It looks at the difference between safe and unsafe scary feelings and helps children identify feelings and supports them in identifying their own safe community of adults to talk to.
Empowering children with this knowledge from an early age and providing them with a toolkit on how to handle a situation they are uncomfortable with could be the thing that prevents it from happening.
There is plenty more information about Fun Scary on our website.
To learn more about National Child Protection Week, visit: https://www.napcan.org.au/ncpw/
