From policy to practice: Working through children’s digital safety in ECEC

Wanting to provide practical resources for anyone on a children’s digital safety journey, Storypark’s pedagogical team has developed a free workbook to help ECEC providers put children’s digital safety policies into practice:

In a community-led approach to children’s digital safety everyone from administrators to IT professionals, educators and families are invited to bring their knowledge and experience to the table, creating a rich, tangible and a more holistic solution.

This kind of community partnership makes digital safety stronger because:

• The expertise and experiences of each group is respected
• Everyone gets onboard with the ‘why’ behind safety measures
• Knowledge and experience gaps can be identified and bridged

One such gap is the support for the ongoing embedding of policy and standards in early childhood educators’ day to day work. In a 2025 study of the “perspectives and experiences of ECEC professionals in implementing the [Victorian Child Safe] Standards,”  participants expressed that connecting the Standards to everyday practice was a noticeable barrier to successful implementation.

Where policy distills complex, often ambiguous issues into clear, actionable language, it is not always apparent where and when it will present itself in real life. It’s why for example, we can easily answer, ‘What is child safeguarding and why is it important?’ but may find it harder to recall details of specific policy and know how we would respond when faced with particular situations. 

Child safeguarding is a shared responsibility, and there is room for a creative and collaborative approach, drawing on the outcomes of practices like first aid training and fire drills, which emphasise collective preparedness through simulation.

These are outcomes like:

• • Awareness and renewed respect for safety: Greater awareness of standards and policy, including establishing who is responsible for particular aspects or actions.
  • Retention: Memory retention is boosted where learning is connected to specific, real life situations and cues.
  • Confidence and motivation: Policy alone is often not inspiring, practice can get people onboard with the ‘why’ behind safety measures, in a safe space free from real world consequences, they get to see that their actions and responses matter.
  • Connection, collaboration and shared responsibility: Taking shared ownership is powerful and can be easier when learning is tangible. Through role-play, teams can better visualise everyone’s part to play and build further trust in each other.  
  • Enriched by multiple perspectives: The NQF Child Safe Culture – Self-assessment and risk assessment tool notes,  “a diverse range of perspectives and experiences can strengthen your reflective conversations.”

Inspired by these outcomes, From policy to practice: Working through children’s digital safety in ECEC is a free workbook for teams and individuals wanting to think through how they put children’s digital safety policies into practice.

Developed by Storypark’s team of pedagogical experts, this resource draws on best practice advice from both the NQF Online Safety Guide and National Model Code guidelines. With an aim to help (hard-working and often time poor) teams upskill, gain clarity together and make policy ‘sticky’ in real life. As a workbook, this is intended not just to be read but to assist ECEC professionals in critically reflecting and taking practical action to improve children’s digital safety as a result.

Download From policy to practice: Working through children’s digital safety in ECEC.