Child Safety
Statement of Compliance
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NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLIANCE STATEMENT 2024
The National Gallery of Australia is committed to keeping children and young people safe.
The National Gallery has a zero-tolerance policy to child abuse and neglect in any form. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children by providing a friendly, inclusive and safe environment. We are focussed on ensuring that our staff, volunteers and external providers are educated and informed of their responsibilities to protect and look after children.
Interaction with children
As a national cultural institution, the National Gallery has a remit to share the national collection with all Australians. Safety of children and young people is considered in the context of all Gallery activities, including visiting public spaces at the National Gallery in Canberra, engaging through our website or other online forums, and participating in education and public programs onsite, online or through outreach initiatives.
The National Gallery offers a range of learning programs for children and young people. Our ‘Curious Corner’ programs, designed for children aged under 5, families, and parents and carers with babies, invites our youngest visitors to engage in interactive experiences that stimulate imagination and creativity, cultivating a love for art and learning through play. ‘Art Steps’ offers online and onsite creative making activities produced by artists for children to enjoy with family and friends.
Exhibition and programming content related to First Nations culture is developed by or in close collaboration with First Nations peoples to ensure it is presented in a culturally informed and safe way. First Nations learning programs and resources are developed by First Nations educators and informed by the Gallery’s Art Through Culture principles.
For the Gallery’s youth visitors ‘Art Live’ is a free event that delivers encounters with art in a festival-like environment, exclusively for young audiences aged 15 to 25. Art Live is developed collaboration with the National Gallery Youth Council, a group of dynamic young creatives aged 15 to 25 years who represent and advocate for young people at the National Gallery.
The National Gallery’s National Summer Art Scholarship provides year 10 (or equivalent) students the opportunity to engage in a 12-month online program offering learning experiences provided by National Gallery curators, artists and educators, culminating in a week-log ‘residency’ at the National Gallery where participants receive ‘behind-the-scenes’ access to the Gallery. To ensure the safety of the young people attending the Gallery residency we have recently revised our risk assessment and policies for the program in relation to management of personal information, overnight supervision and care and health, wellbeing and access requirements.
To ensure the safety of children who attend the National Gallery and engage with National Gallery programs online, Gallery staff and volunteers who have contact with children or design programs for children are required to satisfy a national police check and hold a Working With Vulnerable People registration. Third-party providers and contractors may be engaged to work on specific programs with children and young people, for example exhibiting artists or arts education specialists.
The National Gallery is dedicated to sharing art and creating cultural experiences that expand minds, provoke ideas and ignite imaginations but recognises that children and young people need to be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them. While most of our artistic content is not subject to classification under the Classification Act (1995), we refer to the classifiable elements and impact measurements identified in the Act as a framework to understand community standards of material. Through viewer advice and other mechanisms, we support families and communities to decide how their child/young person participates with content on display without impacting presentation of works of art per original artist intent.
Outcome of annual risk assessment
In 2024, the National Gallery’s annual risk assessment determined its overall child safety risk rating to be medium. The risk assessment identified risks by considering the National Principles of a Child Safe organisation and how well current controls enable the National Gallery to fulfil those principles.
Significant work has been done over the past few years to strengthen child safety at the National Gallery, including the establishment of the Child Safety Policy and Working Group. The 2024 assessment outlines the work underway on a suite of practical procedures, a refreshed training program and new reporting mechanisms (all close to finalisation) will strengthen the Gallery’s controls and work together to reduce child safety risks.
The assessment highlighted a risk around the inability of the National Gallery to provide channels for children to raise concerns. Current controls and planned treatments include the development of a ‘child friendly’ version of the National Gallery Child Safety Policy, updates to the complaints management procedure, and the development of a procedure for the management of child safety specific incidents and complaints.
The National Gallery understands that managing of child safety risks is an ongoing process.
Compliance with the Framework/measures to improve performance
The Commonwealth Child Safe Framework sets out four core requirements.
| Core Requirements | Status at the National Gallery |
| Undertake risk assessments annually in relation to activities of the entity, to identify the level of responsibility for, and contact with, children, evaluate risks to child safety, and put in place appropriate strategies to manage identified risks. | Fully compliant |
| Establish and maintain a system of training and compliance, to make staff aware of, and compliant with, the Framework and relevant legislation, including Working with Children Checks / Working with Vulnerable People Checks and mandatory reporting requirement. |
Partially compliant The updated Child Safety Policy commits the Gallery to a training approach. Staff that work directly with children receive annual training. An online training module for all staff is in the pipeline, due for release later in 2024. |
| Adopt and implement the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. |
Partially compliant The National Gallery Child Safety Policy references all the principles and the Child Safety Working Group meets quarterly to discuss and monitor issues and opportunities. The Gallery is on a maturity journey, and finalising specific procedures, guidance and artefacts (aligned to the principles) to promote greater compliance with the principles is the current priority and focus. |
| Publish an annual statement of compliance with the Framework including an overview of the entity’s child safety risk assessment (conducted under Requirement 1). | Fully compliant |
2024 child safety initiatives
In 2024 the National Gallery redesigned our Child Safety Policy to better align with the Commonwealth Child Safety Framework.
We are also currently finalising a suite of guidelines and procedures to provide practical and clear guidance to all Gallery officials and specify the requirements of staff working directly with children.
This suite includes the following guidance material and procedures:
- Keeping children safe onsite
- Keeping children safe online
- Keeping children safe offsite
- Child safe recruitment and onboarding
- Working with contractors and onsite service providers
- Child safe classification of Works of Art (WoA)
- Child safety incidents and complaints management and reporting.
The National Gallery’s child safety training program for staff and volunteers was redesigned in 2024 to tailor the training to staff who work around children and those who work directly with children. In the coming 12 months, all National Gallery staff and volunteers will be required to complete a child safety eLearning module upon commencement (or as a refresher). All staff classified as working directly with children will be required to undergo an annual online child safety refresher course, and/or participate in annual child safety scenario training.
The National Gallery is reviewing and updating our Contractor Handbook (provided to all external contractors and service providers) and Contractor Management Policy in 2024. The updates will specify the circumstances under which contractors will be required to satisfy a national police check, may be required to provide a recent employer referee check and hold a Working With Vulnerable People registration. The Contractor Handbook will also include the National Gallery’s requirements for all contractors to adopt child safe behaviours.
The Naional Gallery participated in National Child Protection Week activities in Septembe 2024r, focusing on staff engagement opportunities. All staff presentations and communications were delivered during the week and staff were invited to participate in webinars provided by the National Association for Prevention of Child abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN).
Our new WHS and incident Management System, Donesafe, has been configured to ensure that any sensitive child safety related incidents bypass normal notifications, are only delegated to the appropriate officer for action and the Child Safety Working Group Chair is informed. The configuration of the Donesafe contractr module has also commenced.
The Child Safety Working Group met quarterly, updated its Terms of Reference and membership to ensure representation across the various business areas. The Working Group were actively engaged in the development of the new Child Safety guidance material, specific program risk assessments, classification of works of art and review of incidents to identify lessons learned. Two additonal staff memebrs were trained in the approved Cultural Institution content assessment training provided through the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
We remain steadfast in our commitment to child safety and ensuring the National Gallery is a place where children, you and families are safe, included and belong.
Please note the National Gallery’s Child Safety Policy has recently been revised and rereleased in April 2024. The Gallery is currently aligning our procedures and guidelines. While these updates are made, the Gallery follows our existing formal complaint management procedures and policies, Privacy Policy and Conditions of Entry guidelines to manage any child safety incidents and complaints.
