Child safety

Children and young people under 18 years of age are an important part of our RMIT community – as enrolled students, as visitors on campus and as participants in outreach and research. 

The protection of children is a shared responsibility between all RMIT employees, students, and other 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 work with relevant authorities when we have reasonable concern about a child’s safety, or reasonably believe that a child has been abused or harmed  
• 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 appropriately 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 
• Ensuring 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 best practice in Child Safety  
• Ensuring policies and procedures document how the organisation is safe for children and young people.