App J Child Protection

WHAT'S THIS ABOUT

•  Cricket Australia Child Protection Policy (and Blue Card laws)

PROPOSAL

• Update to align with policy updates from Cricket Australia.

DISCUSSION

Cricket Australia (and by extension Queensland Cricket and affiliated cricket associations such as QSDCA) benefit greatly from the adoption of child protection policies which are legally up to date, practical and effective in both making cricket a sport safe for children and young people and making each cricket body's reputation trustworthy and reliable.

In today's community this means that we must take positive steps to comply with legal requirements or face the judgement of a society that is only too willing to condemn what might be regarded as non-culpable positions.

"Innocent until proven guilty" is not a sufficient defence to accusations of child abuse.

So this sporting association will comply with CA and QC's position on this topic to the letter.

We cannot afford to ignore or neglect this. The cost of ignorance or neglect is too high.

A finance scandal might end us in a year or six months. A corruption scandal about the same.  

Mere accusations of criminal child abuse have the potential to end the association overnight. 

Since 2018 we have formally adopted the CA Safeguarding Children and Young People policies. These were updated to 2022 editions in 2023. 

The documentation is displayed at https://qsdca.com.au/12-safeguarding-children-and-young-people/

Practical things we already do to comply with these policies include:

• Requirement of all association volunteers and office holders (umpires and committee members) to maintain a current Working With Children Check (aka a Blue Card)
• Appointed Association Member Protection Information Officers (MPIO's )
• Requirement of affiliated clubs to agree to comply with the policies.

Also important is to stay up to date with new versions of the policies. 

This can sometimes mean that changes cannot wait until the July AGM to be adopted and of course Management Committee can and should respond to this.

A new policy update was released in November 2024. It currently not approved by the association.

The changes suggested to Appendix J will basically remove the dates from the Regulation J1 so that it no longer quotes the out of date policy and can accommodate any updates.

PROPOSAL 

OLD REGULATIONS	What does this mean?/Why does it need change?	PROPOSED NEW REGULATION
Appendix J CHILD PROTECTION POLICIES Applies to All Competitions
J1 Cricket Australia’s updated 2022 Safeguarding Children and Young People was adopted by QSDCA in 2023. This updates the previously adopted 2018 version.	Years and dates removed to allow updates to be adopted by QSDCA Mancom.	J1 Cricket Australia's most up to date Safeguarding Children and Young People policy will be adopted subject to a QSDCA Management Committee motion.
J2 Policy, Member Protection Declaration form, Links to online Child Protection Training, Instructions on Reporting Allegations or Concerns of Child Abuse, QSDCA Member Protection Information Officer contact. Links to Australian Cricket Child Safety Officer Toolkit can be found at https://qsdca.com.au/12-safeguarding-children-and-young-people/	NO changes
BLUE CARDS
J3 Volunteers need a blue card if their work in sport includes, or is likely to include, providing services that are directed mainly towards children, or conducting activities that mainly involve children, unless an exemption applies.	NO changes
J4 Required information can be found at http://www.bluecard.qld.gov.au/	NO changes
J5 QSDCA maintains an online Blue Card Register database with Blue Card Services for all volunteers’ Blue Cards.	NO changes
J6 QSDCA maintains a no card, no start policy for all those who work for the association including umpires, committee members and office bearers.	NO changes