Working with Children in South Australia: Your Legal Obligations

This story was created and shared by Optometry Victoria South Australia (OV/SA).

In South Australia, if you work with people under the age of 18 you are legally required to lodge a child safe environments compliance statement. Here is a simple guide to help you fulfill this requirement.

The Child Safe Environments (CSE) Program has developed a range of resources that simplify the process and assist you to understand your child safeguarding obligations and the various laws that are about child protection in SA. There are serious consequences for failing to lodge; under the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017, your organisation could be exposed to a $10,000 fine.

Lodging a child safe compliance statement

1. Visit this ‘Lodging your Statements’ page on the Department of Human Services website;
2. Click on the link to register with the CSEC online lodgment compliance system.

You will need to answer approximately 13 questions and provide copies of your policies about child safeguarding as evidence of your answers.

Within the resources, there are two templates that have been developed: one for sole traders with no employees, and another for sole traders with employees.

Organisations with existing compliance statement lodgements must review and update child-safe policies and procedures every 5 years (at a minimum) to reflect the National Principles as part of their organisation’s regular policy review process and timelines.

There is no need to do this outside of your regular policy review process. For example, if you originally lodged a compliance statement on 1 January 2021 and your organisation policy review cycle is every 2 years, you will need to review your policies and procedures on 1 January 2023 and update to include the National Principles content.

Regarding penalties, the recent changes to the South Australia Civil Liability Act have reversed the onus of proof involving allegations of harm to children and young people. An organisation now needs to prove that it has taken all reasonable steps to prove that it was not negligent in providing services to children and young people, and one of these steps would be having a completed child safe environment compliance statement in place. There are also new provisions in the SA Criminal Law Consolidation act about child sexual abuse that have heavy jail penalties.

If you are unsure if you need to lodge a compliance statement or are unsure of you have already lodged a compliance statement, contact the CSE Program on (08) 8463 6468,  dhs.childsafe@sa.gov.au, or visit dhs.sa.gov.au/cse.