Safeguarding

St Nicholas is committed to promoting the safety and wellbeing of all children, families and staff in our community

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Our commitment

As an agency of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, St Nicholas is committed to:

Fostering communities of safeguarding, including open and respectful communication about issues of safeguarding with individuals, families and groups
Upholding the dignity and rights of all children and vulnerable adults and seeks to empower them to have their voices heard
Training all relevant personnel in safeguarding knowledge and skills including indicators of abuse, supporting people to disclose abuse and reporting abuse
Working closely with statutory authorities to report alleged abuse and support them to investigate those allegations
Developing our risk assessment and management systems for all diocesan activities and personnel
Developing the breadth and depth of our auditing and compliance regimes
Implementing and maintaining compliance with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards.

The Office of Safeguarding

The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle and St Nicholas have an abiding commitment to promote the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children and vulnerable persons.

The Office of Safeguarding is an integral part of the Diocese and St Nicholas, and is placed outside the Diocese’s services, programs and parishes, overseeing their safeguarding standards in operation.

The Office of Safeguarding works with NSW Police, the Office of the Children’s Guardian, the Department of Community and Justice and other statutory authorities and specialist authorities within the Catholic Church in Australia to fulfil its responsibilities and maximise the safeguarding of children and vulnerable persons.

The Office of Safeguarding supports the Diocese to promote and uphold the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as an institution of the Catholic Church in Australia.

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Rights of the child

As with all peoples, children have human rights across the full spectrum of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.

Because children are recognised as having inherent needs and dependencies, they also have particular rights.

Both the Commonwealth of Australia and the Vatican (Holy See) ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 1990, this is the central international instrument that underpins both Australia’s and the Church’s approach to safeguarding children.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s child friendly summary of children’s rights state that children have the right to:

Be treated fairly no matter what
Have a say about decisions affecting them
Live and grow up healthy
Have people do what is best for them
Know who they are and where they come from
Believe what they want
Privacy
Find out information and express themselves
Be safe
Be cared for and have a home
Education, play and cultural activities
Help and protection if they need it.

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Before and After School Care

Vacation Care

Submit a booking request for Before and After School Care or Vacation Care. One of our friendly team members will be in touch as soon as possible.

Please note:

Submitting a booking request or enquiry does not constitute a confirmed booking. No booking is confirmed until you have received email confirmation from St Nicholas.
For casual and Vacation Care bookings, we have a 5-day cancellation policy, after which the parent/carer will be liable for their full fees for that session. For permanent bookings, we have a 2-week cancellation policy.
One-off cancellations for permanent bookings still require the parent/carer to pay their full fees for that session, unless the cancellation is permanent, in which case the family will forfeit their permanent place for that session.