Child safety at RMIT

Our commitment to child safety

Children and young people are an important part of our RMIT community – as enrolled students, in our onsite childcare, as visitors on campus and as participants in research.

The protection of children is a shared responsibility between all RMIT employees, students, contractors, volunteers, associates, and extended members of the RMIT community. RMIT recognises this responsibility and is committed to protecting all children and young people from harm or maltreatment and supporting them to access all opportunities available to them to develop, progress and live life free of trauma and abuse.

RMIT does not tolerate any form of child abuse, maltreatment, or neglect. We recognise that every child has the right to feel safe, live in a safe environment and be protected from neglect or abuse.

RMIT is committed to:

  • Treating all allegations and safety concerns seriously and managing any reports consistently with our policies and procedures
  • Upholding legal and moral obligations to contact authorities when we have reasonable concern about a child’s safety, or reasonably believe that a child has been abused or harmed. 
  • Empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people and ensuring their cultural safety.
  • Ensuring that child safety and wellbeing is embedded in organisational leadership, governance and culture
  • Taking steps to ensure children and young people are empowered about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously
  • Ensuring families and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing
  • Ensuring that equity is upheld, and diverse needs respected in policy and practice
  • Ensuring people working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice
  • Ensure that there are processes for complaints and concerns which are child focused
  • Ensuring staff and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and awareness to keep children and young people safe through ongoing education and training
  • Ensuring that physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed
  • Regularly reviewing and improving implementation of the Child Safe Standards
  • Ensuring policies and procedures document how the organisation is safe for children and young people.
In case of immediate danger call the Police on 000, and contact Campus Security

The Child Safe Standards

RMIT is committed to the implementation of the Child Safe Standards introduced by the Victorian Government. Our Child Safety Framework sets out the requirements that all members of our University community must follow to provide an environment worthy of the children in our lives. 

To support this, the University has:

  • Recruited a Senior Advisor for Child Safety, within the Safer Community Team
  • Developed a Child Safety Framework
  • Streamlined the child safety reporting process to ensure any child safety concern, disclosure from a child of abuse or harm, or reasonable belief that abuse or harm has occurred or may occur is appropriately responded to.

Reporting a child safety concern

Everybody in the RMIT community shares responsibility for creating and protecting a safe environment. All students, staff and associates of RMIT University must follow the Child Safe Reporting Procedure (or in Vietnam, the Child Safe Reporting Procedure for Vietnam).

The Child Safe Reporting Instruction will help you to better understand how to identify and respond to concerns for the safety of a child/young person at RMIT. Trigger warning - this instruction includes explicit descriptions of abuse and may be distressing to read.

You should report any child safety concern, including:

  • A disclosure from a child regarding abuse or harm, or a reasonable belief that abuse or harm has occurred or may occur
  • An observation, suspicion or allegation of a child safety concern
  • A breach of relevant University policies or Child Safe Code of Conduct, including the Child Safety Policy
  • Any risks to the safety of a child or young person, including physical or online environment safety concerns, risks to health or wellbeing of a young person or concerns about the behaviour of an adult.

Contact

Senior Advisor, Child Safe via Safer Community:

Safer Community checks emails, phone messages and submitted support request forms daily from Monday to Friday.

Please note that we are not an emergency service. If you or others feel at risk or consider the situation to be an emergency, phone 000. If you are on campus, contact Campus Security.

Safer Community_RGB_Primary _Purple
In case of immediate danger call the Police on 000, and contact Campus Security

Providing feedback

RMIT is committed to ensuring that children/young people are empowered about their rights and participate in decisions affecting them, and to ensuring that families and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing.

We encourage you to provide your feedback around child safety at RMIT.

Use the Child Safety at RMIT Feedback Form to tell us what you think.

More information

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.