Calls for National Working with Kids Check

By Annette Blackwell
Brisbane Times
September 9, 2013

http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/calls-for-national-working-with-kids-check-20130909-2tg0m.html

Scouts Australia wants a national scheme of pre-employment screening for people applying to work with children.

Scouts Australia and the NSW Department of Community Services (DOCS) will give evidence at the first public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney next Monday.

Among the matters being investigated by the commission, which is looking at how institutions handle complaints and share information, is if the Working With Children Check (WWCC) needs reform.

The first hearing will deal specifically with how Scouts Australia, Hunter Aboriginal Children's Services and DOCS handled allegations against convicted pedophile Steven 'Skip' Larkins, former chief executive of a foster care agency for Aboriginal children.

He was also an adviser to the NSW government on child protection and a Scouts leader.

Larkins was tried and jailed on child pornography charges in 2012 but during the police investigation, it was uncovered sexual abuse complaints had been made against him decades before.

Last April, the commission published its first issues paper on the WWCC and sought submissions.

Scouts and the NSW government were among 55 organisations and individuals who responded to questions on whether the check needed to be nationally and consistently applied.

Scouts Australia has backed a call for a national scheme, and has for some time said it would provide consistency and eliminate duplication.

In its submission, it argued that a serious and deep attention to reporting in every organisation "should help provide victims with greater confidence to report sexual abuse".

The NSW government however, while acknowledging a national system would have benefits, said there were "many inherent difficulties with implementing a uniform scheme given the differences between the relevant criminal laws of each state and territory".

It suggested "a more realistic approach in the short to medium term would be to agree on nationally consistent approaches to the WWCC supported by minimum standards".

NSW said it was the first state to introduce the working with children check in 2000 and performs over 200,000 checks annually.

In June 2013, the state introduced a new WWCC, which does include some interstate checks.

Charities, churches, state and territory governments and rights organisations, as well as those representing people who have been impacted by sexual abuse, were among the respondents to the WWCC issues paper.

Many want a national system of checks.