29 August 2016 | Tennis Victoria

You may be aware of the above new legislation which applies to various Victorian organisations and sectors, including community sport.

Ensuring that children have safe and great tennis experiences is of the utmost importance to our sport. Our unwavering commitment to child safety – which we know you share – will be enhanced through two complementary projects.

We encourage you to work in conjunction with your club’s coach on the below so that a consistent and coordinated approach is in place.

1. Implementation of the new Victorian Child Safety Standards

Tennis Victoria (TV) is here to support your club, centre or association with meeting new Victorian Child Safety Standards, which formally commence on 1 January 2017. These principle-based standards are initially focused on policies, education and capacity building.

Further information and resources to assist your club to work toward meeting the Standards is available on our club development website, Game Set Match. In short, this is a complex area and based on legal and industry advice TV has identified the current best and simplest resources – most applicable to community sport – to assist you in what you need to do. As always, we are here to help, and please contact your local Participation Leader if you have any queries.

2. Australian Childhood Foundation review – Strengthening and Safeguarding Child Children Culture within Australian Tennis

In parallel to the above Victorian specific work, Tennis Australia (TA) has recently engaged the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF) to conduct a national review to help implement best practice policies and standards across the entire sport from 2017 and beyond. The first step in the ACF’s work for Tennis is grassroots consultation via a survey, which you will all receive from TA on Monday. We encourage you to complete the survey to help best shape this important work.