By now you've probably seen the headlines. A childcare worker in Sydney, now publicly named after a court-ordered suppression was lifted, is facing over 300 charges relating to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children across more than 60 early education centres, spanning 16 years of employment....

There's something special about caravan park life. Kids run free between vans, best friends are made in an afternoon, and everyone leaves their doors - literally and figuratively - wide open. It's community in its purest form.

But it’s also not without risk and that's exactly why I built a clear set ...

Parenting doesn't come with a handbook. And if it did, I'm pretty sure none of us would have time to read it between the school runs, the tantrums, and the seventeen snacks a day.

But here's what I know - as both a mum and a former Detective Senior Constable who spent nearly a decade investigating ...

Nobody told you this in your Certificate III. It wasn't covered in your diploma. It probably hasn't come up in your director training, your compliance review, or your team meetings.

But every time you interview someone for a role in your early childhood centre, you are making a child safety deci...

Can my child go to a sleepover? Is it safe to send them to daycare? Should I let them online? Can I post a photo of them on social media?

These are the questions keeping parents up at night. And I get it - the world feels scarier than ever. The headlines are relentless. The warnings are constant. A...

 What to say when the adults you love are modelling the exact behaviours that put children at risk.

I want to talk about something that doesn’t get said enough.

The behaviours we most commonly associate with grooming and child sexual abuse - the testing of boundaries, the forced physical affection...

I spent nearly six years as a detective specialising in child sexual abuse investigations. In that time, I interviewed hundreds of children and sat across the table from the people who hurt them.

One thing was always true: the abuse didn't start with the abuse.

It started long before - with a proc...

Let me say something that might surprise you.

Not everyone who displays red flag behaviours will abuse your child. 

But here's what I know from nearly a decade investigating child sexual abuse - everyone who abuses a child displays red flag behaviours first.

Read that again.

Red flags are not a ...

When is a child’s sexualised behaviour age-appropriate and when is it something we need to interrupt?

In Australia, the term used to describe sexualised behaviours between children that are inappropriate or problematic is Harmful Sexualised Behaviours (HSB).

For some adults, certain behaviours wou...

I received a message recently that made me think about all the times when I was still in the Police and I felt like protecting kids was an impossible task and being a Police Officer didn't help anyone. 

I had many days where I I felt that what I was doing didn't matter. If I'm honest, I still have da...

Recent cases involving female educators and carers have understandably shaken people and forced many of us to re-examine assumptions about who we trust with our children.

Not because abuse by a female perpetrator is new - but because when a woman, particularly a trusted adult such as a teacher, har...

After years working as a detective with children who had been abused, I started noticing something. 

It wasn't obvious at first but as time went on, certain conditions became consistently apparent. 

Different families. Different ages. Different settings. Different offenders. 
Some cases were adult-...