Child Safe Dance® Practices
Ausdance National Factsheet
Dance is a powerful space for self-expression, creativity, and growth. With more than 150,000 children participating in dance each week in Australia, organisations and businesses who work with children have a clear responsibility to protect their physical, emotional, and cultural wellbeing.
This factsheet provides national, cross-jurisdictional guidance to help dance organisations, schools and studios meet their obligations and embed child safety into every aspect of their practice. It was authored and approved in June 2025 by the Ausdance national network and is now on the Creative Workplaces website who support fair, safe and respectful workplaces for artists, arts workers and arts organisations in Australia.
​
​
​
​
Updated Ausdance ACT Child Safety Policy
Executive Director Cathy Adamek has been working in close consultation with the Child & Young People Commissioner's Office of the ACT Human Rights Commission to review and update the Ausdance ACT Child Safety Policy. This policy was ratified by the Ausdance ACT Board at their meeting in August 2025 and we are now able to share it with the ACT dance community.
The purpose of this policy is to provide a best practice framework for Ausdance ACT and all dance organisations in the ACT and regions who work children, young people and vulnerable people.
This policy should be applied in conjunction with the ACT Child Safe Standards Scheme and the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations which are mandatory for all organisations who are involved with children.
The policy can be accessed in the link below.
If you are an Ausdance ACT member and would like a template version of this policy to adapt for your studio or organisation please email act@ausdance.org.au. Not a member? Sign up here.​
​​​​
Introduction to the Child Safe Standards - Awareness Raising Webinars
.png)
The CYPC is offering free Introductory Awareness Raising webinars that will address:
-
The Child Safe Standards (Standards) and why they have been introduced
-
How the ACTHRC is supporting implementation of the Standards
-
What organisations need to know about the Standards
-
How leaders can support their organisations to embed the Standards
-
How the ACTHRC can support you to become a child safe organisation
These sessions are designed for business owners, teachers, staff and volunteers, middle managers, executive leaders, and board members. We strongly encourage all studio owners to attend a session.
Click on a date below to register for an upcoming session
All sessions are online and run from 1pm–2pm.
Prior to attending the webinar, we encourage you to complete ashort survey to share what you already know or are doing to meet the Child Safe Standards, and how we can support you in your role. The survey can be accessed via https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M7VPGZR
Your engagement and feedback are important to the CYPC because they will help ensure they are supporting you to make Canberra safer for all children and young people.
If you would like to join the ACT Child Safe mailing list for regular updates and early access to upcoming webinars, please register here or tick the box on the webinar registration form.
You can also submit anonymous questions for our team to answer via our online form, or directly to ACTChildSafe@act.gov.au
ACT Child Safe Standards Scheme
ACT Public Advocate and Children and Young People Commissioner, Ms Jodie Griffiths-Cook spoke at our annual Networking Morning Tea about amendments to the Human Rights Commission Act 2005 that make it mandatory for all organisations providing services for children and young people to commence taking actions that will improve their child safety processes and practices, under the ACT Child Safe Standards Scheme. If you missed Jodie's presentation you can view it HERE.
ACT Children and Young People Commissioner Child Safety Survey
In partnership with the ACT Children and Young People Commissioner (CYPC), Ausdance is seeking your assistance to distribute a short survey to children and young people, and their parents/carers in the dance community to help us better understand how we can support studio owners and teachers meet the requirements of the Scheme.
This survey is an important part of helping each of us to learn more about what we are currently doing well and where we can focus our improvement efforts increase children and young people’s feelings of safety when they participate in dance activities. The survey has been tailored to the dance context to enable any dance student aged 8 to 18 years old to have their say. The survey is anonymous and children and young people can end the survey at any time. ACT dance students over age 12 will be asked to choose if they want to complete the survey, and those under 12 years will be asked to confirm that a parent/carer agrees to their participation.
The following materials have been provided to assist in your promotion of the survey:
-
Information poster for children and young people (for printing and putting up in your studio)
​
We appreciate you taking the time to share the survey link with children and young people and look forward to receiving their responses.
The survey is conducted in accordance with the CYPC’s Statement of Ethical Practice. Ausdance will be provided with the collated results, and a summary of the findings will be made publicly available on the ACT Child Safe website. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us, or message the CYPC Team at ACTChildSafe@act.gov.au or via phone on (02) 6205 2222.
​
The survey is now closed.​​
​