Safeguarding Children Specialist

**Role**: Safeguarding Children Specialist

**Location**: Brisbane, Queensland

**Employment Type**: Full-Time

We’re Goodstart

With 16,500 “Goodstarter” team members across nearly 700 centres nurturing 70,000 children, we’re Australia's largest provider of early learning and care. As a not-for-profit social enterprise, we exist purely to improve the lives of Australia's children and their families. From our centre directors to centre teams, we work together to make a real difference for children in those crucial early years.

At Goodstart, we’re all about laying the foundation for better lives through amazing early learning experiences, and we know that we can’t do that without great people

We are seeking a Safeguarding Children Specialist who will report into the National Lead, Safeguarding Children, to support activities related to Child Safe Organisations, including the implementation of the safeguarding children plan and priorities, building capacity, monitoring compliance and interpretation of legislation and policy.

The Safeguarding Children Specialist will model, champion and strengthen Goodstart’s child safe culture through an improved ability to prevent, identify, and respond to allegations or suspicions of abuse, neglect or harm. Implementing strategies to safeguard children the Safeguarding Children Specialist will help to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of children and their continued access to early childhood education and care.

Familiarity with Child Safe Organisation principles as described by the Human Rights Commission, the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian and the Victorian Commission for Children and Young People is essential in this role as is experience and proficiency in the management of child protection concerns and incidents, investigations and case management.

**Your Impact**:
Promote and demonstrate a commitment to the safety, equity, welfare and well-being of children.
Demonstrate a thorough understanding and compliance with all external Child Safe Organisation-related requirements, legal responsibilities, Goodstart’s Safeguarding Children Organisational Framework and policies and procedures.
Provide administrative support and project coordination for safeguarding children initiatives and activities, including secretariat duties for the safeguarding children steering committee.
Assist with the implementation of an organisational strategy for end-to-end safeguarding processes.
Support the network to navigate the management of high-risk child protection incidents and issues and, over time, develop capacity more broadly across the network.
Liaise with external stakeholders such as statutory children protection agencies, relevant regulators, governing bodies, authorities and other identified external experts.
Provide case management support to ensure prompt specialist support to staff, children and families and child focused incident management.
Build the knowledge and capacity of child protection partners to ensure timely reporting of child protection incidents to appropriate external regulatory agencies including Reportable Conduct Schemes.
Analyse complaints, concerns, and safety incidents to identify causes and systemic failures so as to inform continuous improvement and inform the safeguarding child plan and priorities.
Conduct root cause analysis of complex child protection incidents and give remedial recommendations.
Provide advice on policy and practice changes
Develop robust incident management practices.

**You’ll bring to the table**:
Must have relevant experience working in Non-Government and/or Government roles and in-depth knowledge of child protection legislation in each state and territory in Australia
Solid experience in case managing and investigating serious child protection allegations and incidents
Experience and / or qualifications in community services, social work, psychology, justice, welfare, education or policing is desirable.
Previous Early Learning experience is desirable but not essential.

What Goodstart can offer you;
Work for a company that has an aspiration to be globally recognised for early years practice and learning outcomes
Gain significant investment in your growth and development with support, tools, training and experiences that will truly enhance the progress and outcomes for children in their earliest years.
Be a part of a team and work environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging, inclusion and purpose
Access to discounted childcare (up to 15%)
Flexible work arrangements giving you choice about when and how work will be done in order to better manage your work and non-work needs
Discounted health care and access to employee wellbeing program with BUPA
Exclusive discounts on travel, gym memberships, Apple and Dell products, and more.

**How to apply**:
Supporting our people and protecting our children

We are an equal opportunity employer that is proud of our inclusive and diverse work environ