My safety team – adults

A ‘safety team’ or ‘safety network’ is a group of adults and services you can go to for advice or support when it comes to questions about child safety. Adults can often feel a lot of pressure to have all the answers, but you do not have to be an expert. You are not alone, and there are people and services that can help.

Our safety team activities for preschool- and primary school-age children and teenagers include an activity for them to fill in with their safety helpers. You may like to do something similar, use the template in the PDF linked above or keep our list of suggestions below somewhere safe.

Suggestions:

• Triple Zero (000) for emergencies.
• Local police (131 444) or Crime Stoppers (1800 333 000) to report a crime.
• Parentline for parenting advice and support. Note, there is a different Parentline service in each state and territory.
• Lifeline (13 11 14), 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) and 13YARN (13 92 76) for 24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention.
• Blue Knot Foundation (1800 657 380), Bravehearts (1800 272 831) and Survivors & Mates Support Network (SAMSN) (1800 472 676) for child sexual abuse support.
• Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) for 24/7 support for children and young people aged 5 to 25 years, including peer-to-peer support, self-help resources and phone and online counselling. They also operate MyCircle, a 24/7 clinically moderated peer-to-peer support platform for children above 12 years old.
• The eSafety Commissioner for information and resources about online safety, and to report illegal content, including online child sexual exploitation and abuse material.
• The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) for information about child sexual exploitation, and to report online child sexual abuse, including child sexual abuse material.

Our website includes a Get support page with a list of further support services, and a Make a report page with information and contacts to report child safety concerns, including child sexual abuse.