Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults – understanding risk 

This week saw the handing down of the Final Report of the Royal Commission
into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People With Disability. The
twelve volumes contained 222 wide-ranging recommendations for reforms to
improve the safety of people with disabilities. The Executive Summary volume
alone was 356 pages.

As disability services providers, advocates, policy makers, legislators and
people with disabilities and their supporters wade their way through, trying to
work out what it means for them, it is important that we don’t delay any
actions we can take now that will make people with disability safer, while we
await formal government responses, consultation papers and legislative and
other reform processes. 

We know that both children and adults with disabilities are more vulnerable to
institutional abuse and that there can be additional barriers to disclosing or
reporting abuse where it does occur. Understanding context specific
risk and how to respond to it is a key mechanism for creating safer
environments for people with disability, as well as for children and other
vulnerable adults.

When working with organisations, BBSafe helps organisations to identify context
specific risk by asking:
– where are relationships of trust developed in the organisation?
– what are the vulnerabilities of the client group?
– what are the physical environment risks? 
– what are the online environment risks?

Sitting behind these key questions is a detailed risk assessment process which
identifies areas for attention, along with risk mitigation options. 

This risk assessment tool can be applied to organisations working with
children, people with disabilities, older people or other vulnerable
adults. 

Our free webinar this month will expand on the context specific risk assessment
process. The framework we use can be applied to organisations or
businesses working with children and vulnerable adults, and we will give
you practical tips you can apply in your organisation or business immediately
to keep your clients/students/participants safer. Please register here:
https://events.humanitix.com/bbsafe-webinar-or-understanding-abuse-risks-in-your-organisational-context-avo19wjv 

For information about BBSafe, please drop us an email at sarah.lim@bbsafe.com.au.
We would love to hear from you.