Physically and emotionally safe environments are a strong protective factor for the mental health of children and adolescents, and through into adulthood. This presentation will demonstrate how a community approach to protective behaviours can contribute to the strong relationships and communities that support every child to thrive.

Safer Communities for Children offers a new approach to protective behaviours programming. Like many approaches it focuses on resilience-building, and supporting children’s understanding around concepts of safety, early warning signs and safety networks. It does, however, go a step further - by eliciting the voices of children on what helps them to feel safe, and encouraging adults to respond in ways that are meaningful and relevant for the children and their communities. In this way it uses a primary prevention approach that seeks to promote the safety and wellbeing of children by creating greater awareness about the role of adults to keep children physically and emotionally safe.

Safer Communities for Children is designed for children aged four to eight years. It offers an inclusive and culturally safe approach built around bush animal stories and activities with specific messages about safety, that also reinforce community responsibility to value and protect children. Whilst the program was developed in the Northern Territory, its adaptable and flexible nature ensures its relevance across a range of settings such as schools, family centres and early childhood environments in urban, rural and remote settings. This presentation will provide: an overview of Safer Communities for Children (with a taste of one of the stories); an outline of some of the implementation challenges we have faced; and our plans to address these through partnership approaches.