Safety house program western australia

Every year, Safety House groups all around Western Australia are encouraged to celebrate their participation in the Safety House program with their local school community.

This celebration is usually held sometime during Safety House Month in September or at any other time in the year that fits in with the local school and community. The Safety House Program is a positive preventative measure, which successfully provides assistance to children in distress and which acts as an ongoing deterrent to those people seeking to harm children in any way.

The Safety House program also provides personal safety education to primary school children through school shows and publications. These initiatives provide children with the skills and confidence to better manage their personal safety. These committees involve their local community in setting up, operating and monitoring Safety Houses in their area.

A local Safety House Committee Coordinator runs their local program with advice, support and resources available from Safety House staff. Britel contacts Principals in public and private schools around the state and offers to produce a handbook identified with the school name and carrying advertising for local businesses in the area.

The printed handbooks are then delivered to the school and distributed free of charge to every child. There is absolutely no cost to the school for this program. To fund the production and printing of the handbook, Britel Enterprises approaches local businesses and organisations to book advertising space on the cover and inside the booklet.

The handbooks are then produced and delivered to the local primary school for free distribution to every child. The useful and interesting Safety House Child and Parent Handbook is in a handy sized, easy to read format, engaging children in issues of their personal safety and well being. State treasurer Melody Whiting has spent the past few weeks travelling the state to personally remove the program's signage from letterboxes and storefronts of participating homes and businesses.

Ms Whiting has been involved with Safety House since the early s when she helped establish the program in Rockhampton. From there she went on to become the central Queensland area representative, and eventually state secretary and president. But Ms Whiting said the program had been unsustainable without volunteers running localised committees.

The state committee had considered merging with another child protection organisation but none approached were agreeable to the proposal. I think that's why we lasted so long.

Her hope for the volunteers remaining was that they would go on to volunteer else where. Meanwhile, volunteering Queensland CEO Perry Hembury said the challenge facing volunteer organisations was tailoring a recruitment campaign that would raise the awareness of the value of the work and provide easy opportunities to engage.

He said it was disappointing to hear Safety House had struggled to attract sufficient volunteers over the past few years, but said there was no evidence to suggest the overall number of volunteers around the state was declining. Thushara Weerakody - Committee Member. Julie Angwin - Committee Member. Teresa Carruthers - Committee Member.

Organisational Representatives. Ruth Reid - Patron. Stuart Clarke J. Brian Bull - Patron. Paul Fildes - Life Member.