Child protection remains a critical issue in Australia, with the number of children in out-of-home care and reports made to child protection services on the rise, as well as online safety threats. This highlights the need for innovative solutions to protect children—both online and offline.
Education is the key, according to Andrea Musulin, a police officer for 30 years and the Managing Director of the Child Focused Safety Services WA.
Child Focused Safety Services WA is an associated service with the Carnarvon Family Support Services, which runs a women’s refuge, sexual assault therapy service for children, domestic violence outreach service, sobering up centre for men and women, public tenancies, financial counselling, protective behaviours unit and anger management program. The Carnarvon Family Support Services found a building need for a specific service that addresses child abuse and domestic violence for children and young people. That’s when they decided to establish the Child Focused Safety Services.
At the 8th National Child Protection Forum, Andrea Musulin will conduct a mini workshop that seeks to explore evidence-based parenting programs, focusing on their effectiveness in strengthening family relationships and reducing risk factors. Ahead of the forum, she gave Third Sector an overview of the topic.
How can we engage with proven parenting frameworks?
We will talk about Protective Behaviours, which is regarded as the world’s foremost personal safety program for children. We will talk about the application of the frameworks within Protective Behaviours, but from a parenting point of view.
There are a lot of application and processes for service providers, statutory authorities and therapists, but not a lot for parents. We will concentrate on the parents being the primary educators of children, as education must come from the home first. We will also talk about the wholeness of teaching the community, parents and schools and the benefits of that.
We will also introduce and discuss the importance of storybooks for children. That will then lead us into talking about customised storybooks that can be developed or predesign books that can be purchased and used for teaching children about personal safety, with a focus on sexual abuse. Ideally, it’s about sexual abuse prevention, but it does bleed into other abuse categories as well.
How can we adopt programs to address the needs of high-risk and culturally diverse families?
It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves for 30 or 40 years now. It’s about all the materials, and by showcasing some of the storybooks we’ve written, people will see that it’s been customised to the children’s audience.
It’s also about getting culturally appropriate educators. It’s about training the trainer models and culturally appropriate and sensitive trainers to train parents, children and the broader community. We train the trainer organisation and the trainer, but then we also want to build the capacity in trainers to go and take it into the community.
How can we implement parenting initiatives to foster stronger family dynamics and prevent crises?
Educate children and parents. A lot of abuse happens because parents and children are uneducated. The empirical evidence is just starting to show that children who are informed, educated and knowledgeable about personal safety are far less likely to be chosen by a child sex offender.
We have some empirical evidence showing us that overcoming the resistance of the child is the fourth precondition to the occurrence of child sexual abuse. We’re going to talk a lot around that, the grooming process, and how educating children, parents and the wider community can intervene in that grooming process.
Is there anything you would want to add or highlight? What should people look forward to in your session?
I’ve been working in the industry for 40 years, both in a reactive and proactive capacity. A lot of the early work that I was involved in were around protective behaviours in WA and Australia as a whole.
What people could take away is an increased knowledge on broadening the education across the community: parents, children, young people, families, community service providers and government agencies. It’s about reducing risk through education.
Join Andrea Musulin at the Child Protection Forum to be equipped with actionable tools to support family resilience and positive parenting. Secure your spot for the forum here.
Geraldine is currently the Content Producer for Third Sector, an Akolade channel. Throughout her career, she has written for various industries and international audiences. Her love for writing extends beyond the corporate world, as she also works as a volunteer writer at her local church. Aside from writing, she is also fond of joining fun runs and watching musicals.
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