Child and student empowerment

Guidance on Child Safe Standard 3: Children and young people are empowered about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously.

Schools

To comply with Child Safe Standard 3, schools must:

create a culture that values and promotes student participation
inform students about all their rights.

Child and student empowerment

This standard supports schools to create a culture that values and promotes student participation. This includes:

informing students about their rights and responsibilities in an age-appropriate way
recognising the importance of friendships and peer support
enabling students to actively participate in creating a culture that is safe for them and their peers.

Benefits of empowering students

Empowering children and young people improves child safety. Policies and practices that are shaped by children’s and young people’s views can better prevent the risk of harm. Children and young people are more likely to speak up when they feel respected and confident that they will be heard.

Supporting friends and peers

Children and young people benefit from strong friendships. They often see their friends as their main source of support, information and advice, and will go to them for help.

Supporting students to raise concerns about the safety or wellbeing of their friends to encourage students to support their peers.

Actions schools must take

To comply with this standard, at minimum, schools must:

inform students about all their rights, including their rights to safety, information and participation
recognise the importance of friendships and encourage support from peers, to help students feel safe and be less isolated
make sure staff and volunteers:

are attuned to signs of harm
facilitate child-friendly ways for students to express their views, participate in decision-making and raise their concerns

to develop a culture that encourages participation and responds to what students say
give students opportunities to participate, and respond to their contributions to strengthen confidence and engagement
offer students access to sexual abuse prevention programs and related information in an age-appropriate way

school boarding premises are required to offer sexual abuse prevention programs and related information where it is relevant to the setting or context

develop curriculum planning documents or other documentation that details how the school will address these requirements.

Relevant standards

Ministerial Order 1359 – Implementing the Child Safe Standards – managing the risk of child abuse in schools and school boarding premises (PDF, 363KB)
Child Safe Standard 3 – Children and young people are empowered about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously

Implement the Standard

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Think about actions your school might take

There are many actions schools may use to address this standard. To get started, review the example actions on this page.

Develop policies

Talk to families and students when developing these policies if it is safe, reasonable and appropriate to do so. For guidance, use Child Safe Standard 4: Family Engagement.

Schools can use these templates to develop the policies:

All schools

Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy guidance template (DOCX, 448KB)

Government schools

Student Wellbeing and Engagement Policy (login required)
Complaints Policy template (login required)

Take all the necessary actions

Use this checklist to make sure your school is doing everything required to comply with this standard:

Government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 110KB)
Non-government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 385KB)

Review child safety policies

Schools must review their child safety and wellbeing policies:

after any significant child safety incident
at least once every 2 years.

Examples of actions to support the child and student empowerment

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Inform students of their rights

Provide age appropriate and accessible information to students such as information about:

the school’s Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Code of Conduct.
the Charter of Commitment under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
the work of the Commission for Children and Young People
how the adults in the school should behave.

Inform students of their rights and special protections including the right to:

live and grow up healthy
have a say about decisions affecting them
get information that is important to them
be safe and not harmed by anyone.

When sharing information under the information sharing schemes:

work to build trust by being open and transparent about information sharing and keep the child and family informed each time their information is shared if it is appropriate, safe and reasonable to do so
seek and consider the views of the child (or the relevant family members) about sharing their confidential information if it is appropriate, safe and reasonable to do so

Provide information through the curriculum via relevant subject areas to promote:

Empower students to contribute to school life

Display visually engaging and easy-to-read posters promoting student voice and agency.
Discuss commitment to student’s voice at enrolment and organise orientation activities focused on activating student’s voice.
Conduct year-level meetings and form groups to discuss students’ rights and safety issues.
Invite students to provide feedback on school-wide decisions and take their views into account in school decision-making.
Document student participation in activities that contribute to the life of the school.
Involve students in consultation processes and inform them of their impact on decision-making.
Demonstrate that the school takes students seriously by acting on their concerns. Note that what might seem unimportant to an adult may be important to a young person.
Become a VicSRC Partner School.
Provide students who find it harder to speak up or be heard with multiple avenues for communicating. This can include writing, drawing, or physical forms of communication.

Empower students to raise their concerns

Provide students with information about complaints processes.
Give students a variety of ways to raise concerns. For example:

provide an anonymous, year-level student suggestion box
distribute regular online surveys
display information about the adults who students can talk to if they have a concern.

Highlight student views in your school community or public-facing documents, including quoting students where appropriate.
Create opportunities for all student voices by being aware of discriminatory barriers and any overreliance on the input of student leaders.

Strengthen peer support for safety and wellbeing

Display posters acknowledging sexuality and gender diversity and identify safe spaces where students can go if they need support.
Carry out regular whole school wellbeing assessment surveys.
Use the Bully Stoppers survey tool to assess bullying in your school.
Establish Student Action Teams to investigate issues of inclusion and exclusion.
Discuss healthy boundaries for friendships. Point out that the risk of harm can occur in child-to-child interactions, as well as adult-to-child interactions.
Use school transition programs, like Transition: A Positive Start to School (DOCX, 4.3MB) or Transition – Year 6 to 7, to provide support for students entering the school.
Provide buddying or mentoring programs for new students transitioning to the school mid‑year or outside of the regular transition timeline.

Establish protective factors

Teach students practical protective strategies, including:

what to do when they feel unsafe
phrases they can use to raise an objection
pathways for raising safety concerns, and
online safety behaviours.

Provide contact information for independent child and youth advocacy services or helplines.
Provide a range of age-appropriate picture books, fiction and non-fiction that include:

children’s rights and empowerment themes
cultural and linguistic diversity
neurodiverse characters and people with disability
diversity in sexual orientation and gender.

Support all students to identify trusted adults and friends they can talk to about a concern at school, at home or in the community.
Deliver age-appropriate curriculum content about respectful relationships, sexuality, consent and sexual abuse prevention. Schools can use the Resilience Rights and Respectful Relationships teaching and learning materials as part of implementing the whole school approach to Respectful Relationships.
Use the School’s Mental Health Menu to support students in your school.
Empower students with the knowledge that adults are accountable and that students have a right to safety.

Communicate in a respectful and age-appropriate way

Educate staff to uphold Aboriginal cultural safety and be respectful of identity and culture.
Train staff and volunteers to facilitate child-friendly ways for students to express their views, participate in decision-making and raise their concerns.
Educate staff and volunteers about children’s rights, including the 4 guiding principles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Use sensitivity and build trust

Provide training to staff and volunteers to be attuned to signs of harm and risk factors in students.
Remind staff and volunteers to recognise that students might communicate in different ways. This includes through verbal and non-verbal cues, play, body language, facial expressions, drawings or behaviours.
Follow through on your commitments – show students that the leadership team and staff are trustworthy and take their worries or concerns seriously.

Resources

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Government schools

Non-government schools

Training resources

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Department resources

External resources

Support

For further help to meet Child Safe Standard 3 and Ministerial Order 1359, contact child.safe.schools@education.vic.gov.au.

Possible next steps

Schools can use this checklist to implement this standard:

Government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 110KB)(opens in a new window)
Non-government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 385KB)(opens in a new window)

Read more about implementing the Child Safe Standards(opens in a new window) in schools.

Education & training

Updated 26 March 2026

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Child and student empowerment

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Child and student empowerment

Benefits of empowering students

Supporting friends and peers

Actions schools must take

Relevant standards

Implement the Standard

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Examples of actions to support the child and student empowerment

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