In light of the recent challenges faced in the early childhood education and care sector, ECA established the Rapid Response Taskforce, a team of experts in child sexual abuse prevention and safeguarding. This expanded and collaborative focus on child safeguarding aims to collate and develop a range of expert-informed resources available to education and care professionals across Australia. These resources are designed to enhance child safety practices, provide timely support, uphold the highest standards of children’s safety, and ensure ethical practices across the sector.
ECA is dedicated to supporting early childhood professionals who work with children and their families.
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ECA is working with experts in child sexual abuse prevention and child safeguarding, other peak bodies, service providers and colleagues across the sector to engage in discussions with policymakers on evidence-based responses. In addition to ECA’s advocacy, we are working in collaboration with subject matter experts to collate resources for service leaders to support them during this time to improve access to professional learning on abuse prevention for educator teams.
Our advocacy
While Early Childhood Australia as peak body for early childhood continues in its advocacy to Australian governments, we also seek to affirm principled, ethical practice foregrounding children’s rights. ECA’s advocacy continues to champion for every young child thriving and learning, and access to high quality early childhood education and care whatever their circumstances and where they live. Early Childhood Australia has recognised the very real need to back in support for the early childhood profession, to acknowledge principled, ethical, quality professional practice, and to provide research-informed practical support towards capability uplift where it is needed.
Our purpose
The ECA Rapid Response Taskforce has crafted advice specifically applicable to early childhood education and care settings, carefully curating research-informed resources for early childhood professionals. The ECA Rapid Response Taskforce presents materials that seek to:
1.
Affirm and uphold principled, ethical practice across the sector.
2.
Clearly define what effective child safety and safeguarding looks like, with practical strategies for embedding and sustaining these practices across whole teams and services.
3.
Provide guidance to early childhood professionals in identifying risks to children’s safety and ways to mitigate these risks.
4.
Advocate for the consistent application of the Child Safe Principles and Practices at both service and organisational levels.
5.
Promote critical reflection through thoughtful engagement with materials that also provide implementation guidance.
6.
Champion practice that promotes the voice and rights of children.
7.
Articulate the characteristics of high-quality practice that foster a strong culture of safety in early childhood settings.
8.
Acknowledge the importance of high-quality early childhood education and care in the lives of young children and promote the professionalism and integrity of the sector.
Meet the Taskforce
Catharine has a master’s degree in early childhood education and extensive experience in the sector. She began her career as an early childhood teacher and went on to lead a range of services and projects for children and their families. Her focus is on early childhood practice, pedagogy, leadership coaching and mentorship, quality improvement, policy and governance, and delivery of integrated services to vulnerable children and families.
Catharine’s involvement in the education sector is an important part of her commitment to quality outcomes for children. She is a long-time member of ECA and regularly contributes to ECA publications, webinars and online learning opportunities. In 2022 she completed a Diploma of Governance strengthening her commitment to effective policy and governance. Catharine is also a second-tier reviewer for ACECQA
Janet is responsible for leading Early Childhood Australia’s (ECA’s) national inclusion and early intervention strategy including managing and NDIS Partner in the Community and Inclusion Support programs in the Northern Territory.
Janet has extensive experience in working with young children and families experiencing vulnerability and disadvantage. Her background and training has been in general and psychiatric nursing, social work and family therapy working in both the UK and Australia.
Janet has held several executive leadership and management roles in large not for profit health and education organisations including the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Early Childhood Management Services, Kids First (formerly CPS) and Karitane.
Jo is an experienced senior leader with over 20 years of expertise in early childhood education, workforce capability and educational leadership and design. Her career has centred on building the capability of early childhood professionals through the design and delivery of impactful strategies that promote safe, supportive, and inclusive practice.
Jo has led workforce capability initiatives across the not-for-profit and community services sectors, including in the context of child sexual abuse, with a strong focus on strengthening the capacity of individuals and organisations to better identify and support victims and survivors.
Kate is the Education Project Manager at Bravehearts, overseeing teams across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania who deliver Ditto’s Keep Safe Adventure Program to children in early learning and lower primary settings. She also leads the organisation’s child protection training and resource development for educators and other professionals. Through these comprehensive programs, and with a genuine and unwavering commitment to keeping children safe, Kate and her team empower children with vital personal safety education and equip adults with the knowledge and confidence to create child-safe environments.
Katrina joined Act for Kids in 2006, became Executive Director of Services in 2008 and was appointed Chief Executive Officer in August 2020. She is a registered psychologist with more than 20 years’ experience delivering clinical and social services at the individual, organisational and community level.
Katrina has a Ph.D in children’s cognitive, social and emotional development and postgraduate qualifications in governance, business and education.
Before joining the Act for Kids team, Katrina practiced as a private psychologist and worked as a university lecturer. Her strong interest, research and teaching in the area of children’s development, led her to work in the child protection sector.
Katrina is passionate about early intervention and prevention of child abuse and neglect and believes that all children who have suffered trauma should have access to the best possible services in order to develop to their full potential.
Nicole Talarico is best known as an advocate for child safety and children’s rights, with a social justice lens always present. Nicole’s career spans thirty years in the education and care sector having engaged in roles supporting high quality practice and compliance.
Nicole is an author, her book Asserting a Culture of Child Safety was written to guide education and care services to create and maintain physical, emotional, spiritual, social and culturally safe environments inclusive of online safety. Nicole’s insights have been shared at inter/national conferences in the capacity as key note speaker and MC and through targeted professional development projects.
Nicole undertakes Quick Response work and training for the Department of Education in VIC, NSW and WA due to her extensive experience in the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Nicole’s work has been published in a range of early childhood sector peak body publications, inclusive of podcasts, and webinar platforms.
Samantha Dellamarta is an experienced leader in the provision of services relating to the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. Her career history of direct practice, leadership and consulting roles spans a range of government and non-government agencies. Her previous role as the Senior Adviser to the Children & Young People Commissioner with the ACT Human Rights Commission provided the platform that drives her passion around institutional safety for children and young people today.
Sam has led safeguarding projects with local, state and national bodies including Girl Guides Australia, YMCA Australia, Family Day Care Australia (FDCA), the Australian Football League (AFL) and the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).
Each opportunity has had significant focus on policy development, education and training, building sustainable safeguarding governance structures, prioritising the voice of children and young people, implementing change at all levels and shifting organisational culture. Sam has a sound knowledge of legislation and best practice on both a local and global scale. She holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and has qualifications in training and assessment, investigations and auditing.
Samantha Melching is a senior leader in child protection and human services with over 17 years’ experience driving quality improvement, service innovation, and systemic change across government and non-government sectors.
Currently Director of Service Quality & Development at Act for Kids, Samantha leads strategic initiatives that strengthen service delivery and outcomes for vulnerable children and families. She has overseen the development and national rollout of protective behaviours program, Learn to Be Safe with Emmy and Friends. Her leadership ensured that the initiative, which enables children, carers, and the community to recognise, react to, and report unsafe or risky situations, remained trauma-informed, evidence-based, and effective in promoting children’s personal safety.
Samantha also designed and implemented Act for Kids’ Service Quality Management System, embedding best practice and continuous improvement across the organisation.
Her expertise spans program design, operational leadership, and systems thinking, underpinned by qualifications in child and family services, business, and project management.
Early Childhood Australia (ECA), the national peak advocacy organisation for children under eight, their families and professionals in the field of early childhood development and education. ECA was established in 1938 and works with Government, early childhood professionals, parents, other carers of young children, and various lobby groups to advocate to ensure quality, social justice and equity in all issues relating to the education and care of children from birth to eight years.
ECA is a not-for-profit membership based organisation. It also has a successful retail and publishing arm, producing a number of very well regarded subscription based publications including the Australian Journal of Early Childhood. Sam holds a Master’s Degree in (Community) Management from the University of Technology, Sydney and she is a Graduate of the Company Directors course offered by the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Her passion is for social equality and she has worked in the non-government sector for 20 years across roles encompassing service delivery, executive management, consulting, social policy analysis and advocacy. She has extensive experience in the development and implementation of social policy and sector development projects.
Sarah holds a Doctor of Education; Master of Education (Early Childhood Teaching); Master of Education; Graduate Certificate in Education (Special Education); Graduate Certificate in Education (Catholic Education); Bachelor of Education (JP/P); Bachelor of Teaching (JP).
Sarah brings deep knowledge and expertise in education research, policy and practice in the early childhood, school and tertiary sectors. Sarah also brings to her work, knowledge and lived experience as an early years educator, understanding inherently the role of high-quality early childhood education and care in the lives of young children and their families.
Shae holds a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood) and Cert IV in Training and Assessment. Shae is an experienced leader, with a background in educational leadership, management and training early childhood educators in both vocational and non-vocational settings.
Shae has nurtured a variety of professionals to develop their knowledge and skills in working with young children. In her current role, Shae leads the ECA Professional Learning Team including driving the success of the ECA Learning Hub. She has extensive connections across the sector and is well placed to recruit and manage an effective coaching team.
Siobhan brings a strong understanding around learner experience and how content translates in the online environment at a self-paced mode. Siobhan has 17 years of Early Childhood experience working directly with children and has extensive experience in managing large and complex centres, mentoring teams with high expectations on professionalism, and emphasis on the importance of trusting and reciprocal relationships.
In her current role at ECA, Siobhan manages the User acceptance team who implement the testing process and quality assurance of all ECA Learning Hub courses. She works closely with multiple stakeholders to enhance learner experience, creating innovative approaches to maximize impact and ensure learners are getting the most out of the ECA Learning Hub. She supports organisations in analysing data and student engagement to create personalised professional learning plans.
Supportive resources
Online courses
Share your insights
We want to make sure the resources we provide are as useful and relevant as possible. Take a few minutes to complete our short survey and let us know:
- what safeguarding topics you’d like to learn more about
- what kinds of resources or formats best support your practice.
Downloadable resources
ECA acknowledges the valuable contributions of the Rapid Response Taskforce, whose expertise and commitment supported the development of these resources.
Recommended resources
Putting children first: Child safe organisations
The Circle of Security: Roadmap to building supportive relationships
Asserting a Culture of Child Safety
Educator wellbeing
ECA understands that early childhood professionals who turn up for children and families every day are shocked and saddened by this terrible offending, which is a betrayal of everything professional educators stand for. We encourage colleagues from across the sector to seek assistance as needed either from your own employment assistance program or from the following mental health and support services accessed via this link from Be You.
Curated resources
Child Safe Organisations
Act for Kids
Bravehearts
National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse
- Perpetrators and grooming
- What is child sexual abuse?
- Prevention: Keeping children safe from sexual abuse
- Indicators and impacts of child sexual abuse
- Understanding and responding to adult’s disclosure of child sexual abuse
- How to support children and young people who display, or are victims of harmful sexual behaviours
- Responding and taking action
Practice examples
Many service providers have already implemented initiatives intended to improve child safety in their services. Some examples of this include:
Partner organisations
Early Childhood Australia is grateful for the generous support of the following partner organisations and colleagues with their breadth and depth of research-informed knowledge and expertise in children’s safety and safeguarding:
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