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Refer: respond to abuse by an adult engaged by an independent school

Guidance on how to refer students to community services. Refer is one of the 4 Critical Actions.

Schools

Any allegation, complaint, disclosure or concern of abuse by an adult engaged by a school may be reportable conduct under Victoria’s Reportable Conduct Scheme.

All reportable allegations must be reported.

4 CRITICAL ACTIONS

⬣ Identify ▲ Report ● Support ■ Refer

On this page

Refer students to community services

Matters involving allegations of sexual offences

For matters involving allegations of sexual offences, the Sexual Harm Response Unit will work with regional health and wellbeing staff and the school to make sure impacted students and their families are referred to appropriate supports.

Support may include connecting the student and family with their local specialist sexual assault service, or other counselling or support service within the community.

Other matters

For matters that do not involve sexual offences, your school can refer students to specialist support services available in the community. This complements your actions to support students in the school.

Specialist support services support with:

Specialist support services are available to support:

Open all

Before you engage with students and their parents or carers, highlight which services are likely to be the most suitable. This will depend on:

You can also consider:

Talk to students and their parents or carers about the services that are available. This can help them choose the service that best meets their needs.

Ideally, a student will self-refer to a service, with the help and support of their parents or carers. However, your school can help to connect a student to a service. You could do this by making a phone call to the service with, or on behalf of, the student.

Engage school staff with information sharing responsibilities to share and request information with and from other Information Sharing Entities (ISEs) under the Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS).

For example, your school can request information on the status of a referral.

To share information safely and appropriately, follow the guidance at staff who use CISS and FVISS.

Continue to help students after a referral

If your school helps to refer a student to a specialist support service, that service may inform you of the outcome of the referral.

If you are not part of the referral, you may still learn the outcome through an information sharing request. For example, this could happen if the student self-refers.

The service may tell you:

If a student or their parents or carers do not want to engage with a service at this time, you can give them the list of services, helplines and websites.

By giving them this list, the student or their parents or carers can directly connect with further support and information when they’re ready. This is another way to help them feel empowered and make it more likely that they seek help, even if it’s not immediate.

Follow up with the student or their parents or carers to ensure they can access the services they need. If the student is unable to access a service, consider alternatives that may be available.

Continue your responsibilities

At all times, you should continue to:

This should be in collaboration with:

Next steps

Review

After any significant child safety incident, your school must:

This is required under Ministerial Order 1359, which sets out how the Child Safe Standards apply in schools.

A review involves:

For more details, see reviewing child safety practices. This includes:

Government schools

In matters involving sexual offences, the Sexual Harm Response Unit and School Compliance Unit support schools to:

You’ve completed the 4 Critical Actions for now

Have you also done the steps in the other 4 Critical Actions?

⬣ Identify ▲ Report ● Support ■ Refer

Support is ongoing. You may need to support and refer the student at the same time.

At all times throughout the 4 Critical Actions, you must:

What happens next:

Keep monitoring the situation. If things change, you may need to come back.

If you need support yourself, see wellbeing support for school staff.

Education & training

Updated 30 March 2026

At all times

Throughout the 4 Critical Actions, you must:

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