Child safe volunteering

April, 2026

Child Safety is a high-profile issue in the public domain, with a number of catastrophic failings in various systems, such as childcare. In 2022, Volunteering Australia research found that 32.5 per cent of formal volunteers identified that their volunteering primarily aimed to assist children and youth. Ensuring the safety of children and adherence to the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, as required by law, is essential to a sustainable volunteering ecosystem that supports child and young people in settings ranging from health care to sport. This includes both volunteers who work with children and children who volunteer. 

The National Principles for Child Safe Organisations set out a nationally consistent approach to promoting a culture of child safety and wellbeing within organisations. The ten principles give effect to the child safe standards recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) and bring attention to general child safety and wellbeing issues.  Principle 7 emphasises the importance of information, ongoing education and training for staff and volunteers.

“Staff and volunteers build on their knowledge and skills and evidence-based practice tools through professional seminars and memberships, supervised peer discussions, team training days and access to research and publications. This ensures staff and volunteers develop awareness and insights into their attitudes towards children and young people, and have a contemporary understanding of child development, safety and wellbeing. They can identify indicators of child harm, respond effectively to children and young people and their families and support their colleagues.”

Policy position

Volunteering must be taken into consideration in the work of the National Office for Child Safety as it implements the principles. Child Safe Volunteering should be listed as a separate action in the next three-year action plan with a view to supporting the ecosystem overall to implement these principles in practice.

This is one of six priorities identified in our 2026-27 pre-Budget submission. We have been advocating for consideration and inclusion of volunteering in the next action plan, as well as related risk mitigation and education for several years.

Engagement

Volunteering Australia works closely with the National Office for Child Safety within the Attorney-General’s Department on this issue and through membership of its Child Safe Sectors Leadership Group and related fora. 

Child safe volunteering statistics

Volunteering Australia’s Key Volunteering Statistics report provides the most recent available data from 2022 regarding the portion of volunteers engaged in assisting children and youth.