National Child Protection Week wraps up for 2022

Mon 12-09-2022 15:02 pm AEST

What a week! National Child Protection Week (NCPW) 2022 has officially concluded, ending a week-long program of events that sought to engage and educate all Australians about their role in keeping our children and young people safe.


NCPW is run by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) and is held in September every year across Australia. Acting ACCCE and Human Exploitation Commander Jayne Crossling said NCPW is a great opportunity to show all Australians the work being done by the AFP, ACCCE and our partners to protect children every day.


“Of course our work in child protection continues well past this week and the volume is unrelenting. “We’re fortunate to have built such close relationships with our partners, working together to reduce the exposure and impact of the criminal environment on our children,” Acting Commander Crossling said.


The week was officially launched at Government House on Monday by NAPCAN Patron and Governor-General, David Hurley, and keynote speaker, National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds. Commander ACCCE and Human Exploitation Hilda Sirec and Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling attended the event on behalf of the AFP and ACCCE.


During the week we encouraged all members to engage with a number of events to help raise awareness about child protection. Starting with the Closing the Net podcast, which has picked up another award, winning the Branded Podcast of the Year category at the annual Radio Today Podcast Awards of 2022.


The ACCCE released three new animations to help the community better understand: What is the ACCCE? What is Online Child Sexual Exploitation? and How to report Online Child Sexual Exploitation. The animations can be viewed and shared at www.accce.gov.au.

parent and child animation

The AFP’s ThinkUKnow program profiled their amazing state and territory presenters, thanking them for their continued support in delivering important online child safety information to the community. Detective Superintendent Crossling and Senior Prevention Officer Online Child Safety Team Danielle Broster also delivered a ThinkUKnow presentation to parents and carers at St John Vianney’s Catholic Primary School in Manly, in the eastern suburbs of Brisbane. Around 60 parents and carers attended the session to learn about how to prevent online child sexual exploitation. We also gave them a sneak peek of our children’s picture book Jack Changes the Game developed by ThinkUKnow and the ACCCE, is due to be launched early October 2022.


Commander Sirec was a keynote speaker at the North Queensland Child Protection Symposium in Townsville. The event promoted the value of children, and focused attention on issues of child abuse and neglect, as well as highlighting some of the organisations involved in child safety.


The ACCCE hosted an RUOK Day breakfast and learned there’s no qualifications needed to ask RUOK? We sat down with SHIELD Psychologist Sophie Miller to ask about her role, advice on combatting stress, and how to ask… RUOK? You can read more about our chat with Sophie at www.accce.gov.au.


We also profiled many activities of our partners during the week including eSafety’s parent webinars, the Daniel Morcombe Foundation Australia’s Biggest Child Safety Lesson and to finish the week, the ACCCE hosted Bravehearts Day morning tea events in both Brisbane and Canberra along with some of our key stakeholders.