Safer Together

You’re invited to a free sector-wide webinar, now more than ever, the early childhood sector is stepping up to lead on child safety.

Join Child Australia for a national webinar focused on practical solutions, stronger systems and shared responsibility — because protecting children must be at the heart of everything we do.

This session will move beyond headlines and crisis response, offering evidence-based, actionable strategies to create safer environments in every early learning setting, everywhere in Australia.

• Thursday 31 July
• 2:00pm AWST
• Free Live Webinar
• Panel of experts across education, child protection, policy & regulation
• No cost. Open to all sector professionals, leaders & families

Meet the Expert Panel

Hear from national child safety agencies, jurisdictional regulators, ACECQA, family advocates, child protection specialists and early childhood providers with hands-on experience. More speakers will be announced soon.

Together, we’ll explore:

• Red flags and early intervention strategies
• Clear escalation and reporting pathways
• Sector gaps and opportunities for stronger cross-agency collaboration
• How educators and families can recognise & respond to inappropriate adult behaviours

Georgie Dent CEO
The Parenthood

Georgie Dent is the CEO of The Parenthood, Australia’s leading parent advocacy organisation representing over 80,000 parents, carers and supporters.

She is a best-selling author, former lawyer and prominent advocate for children, families, gender equity and mental health. The Parenthood champions paid parental leave, access to quality early childhood education and care and family-friendly workplaces. She is a mum of three and lives in Sydney with her husband & co-partner in chaos.

Gabrielle Sinclair CEO
ACECQA

Gabrielle Sinclair is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) which is the independent national authority for the Early Childhood Education and Care sector’s National Quality Framework.

Gabrielle commenced her career as a teacher and has held senior executive positions in a number of Queensland Government portfolios including Education, Infrastructure, Planning, Local Government and Corrective Services.

Before her appointment to ACECQA in January 2017, Gabrielle was Deputy Director-General, Early Childhood and Community Engagement in the Queensland Department of Education and Training.

Gabrielle has degrees in teaching and education, a Master’s degree in Education and an Executive Master’s degree in Public Administration.

Michael Petrie – General Manager, Workforce, Engagement and Research
ACECQA

Michael Petrie is General Manager, Workforce, Engagement and Research, and leads ACECQA’s functions relating to national workforce policy, qualifications and skilled migration assessments, research and evaluation, communication, and stakeholder engagement. As part of his responsibilities, he also leads ACECQA’s national customer enquiries team and its family focused website Startingblocks.gov.au.

Michael also has extensive experience working with government and senior leaders from the public sector, industry, unions and peak representative groups.

Nicole Talarico
Talarico Consulting

Nicole Talarico is best known as an advocate for child safety and children’s rights, with a social justice lens always present.

Nicole’s career spans thirty years in the education and care sector having engaged in roles supporting high quality practice and compliance. Nicole is an author, her book Asserting a Culture of Child Safety was written to guide education and care services to create and maintain physical, emotional, spiritual, social and culturally safe environments inclusive of online safety. Nicole’s insights have been shared at inter/national conferences in the capacity as key note speaker and MC and through targeted professional development projects.

Nicole undertakes Quick Response work and training for the Department of Education in VIC, NSW and WA due to her extensive experience in the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Nicole’s work has been published in a range of early childhood sector peak body publications, inclusive of podcasts, and webinar platforms.

Register here.