| National
Child Protection Week: |
Building
a Child Friendly Australia
In the lead up to National Child Protection Week, Sept
3rd -9th 2006, NAPCAN Foundation is calling on parents,
carers, professional organisations, and the wider Australian
community to really get involved and help prevent child
abuse before it starts, by creating child friendly communities.
This key event in the national calendar encourages all
Australians to participate in a range of activities, in
order to promote the wellbeing and safety of all children.
By raising public awareness about the problem of child abuse
and neglect, the week inspires all members of the community
to take action to prevent it, by helping to make their local
community child friendly.
A child friendly community is one where children are valued,
supported and respected. It may be a local street, a sporting
club, a domestic environment a public park. By giving children
opportunities to reach their potential and be actively involved
in decisions that affect their lives, a child-friendly community
significantly reduces risk factors leading to abuse and
neglect, and so promotes their wellbeing and resilience.
Child abuse and neglect is a wide spread problem in Australia
with 40,416 substantiations of abuse and/or neglect that
is 1 child substantiated every 11 minutes . Yet, a national
study by the Australian Childhood Foundation: Out of Sight
- Out of Mind has found that Australians are more concerned
with rising petrol prices and public transport than the
issue of child abuse and neglect. For this reason NAPCAN
encourages Australians to take part in National Child Protection
Week and collectively work together everyday to create a
safer environment for children.
In 2005 approximately 250,000 Australians directly participated
in at least one of the registered 2,500 community activities
- a two-fold increase on 2004. Activities during the week
included community breakfasts, information forums, fundraising
events, community building workshops, and simple family
fun days.
This year NAPCAN is shifting focus to the children themselves
by encouraging adults to give them the chance to freely
express themselves, and play a part in making their local
communities child friendly. We believe that children really
do have a good understanding and knowledge of what is meant
by 'child friendly' and that child friendly communities
can best be created by listening to, and acting upon, children's
ideas.
As momentum grows towards National Child Protection Week,
we have launched the Capture a Child Friendly Moment Campaign.
Encouraging people to send us photographs and stories of
child friendly moments, we are sharing them with the wider
community on our website, and together are building a picture
of how a child friendly Australia can look. Capturing and
sharing child-friendly moments also act as a reminder as
to how simple child-friendly communities are to create.
With your help NAPCAN Foundation will continue to inspire
all Australians to get involved in NCPW and take up the
'child friendly challenge' by putting kids first and building
a child friendly Australia.
To register an event for NCPW after June 30th or to find
more information visit www.napcan.org.au
or call 9211 0224.
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