Safe Schools Program

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (15:37): I rise today to talk about the Safe Schools program. I recently visited SHine SA to speak with Natalya Giffney, the South Australian Project Manager for the Safe Schools Coalition, to gain a greater understanding of how the program operates and the work that has been going on in our South Australian schools.

Safe Schools was designed to promote inclusion and acceptance of same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse students. It is believed that 75 per cent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, intersex (LGBTI) students experience a form of abuse in their life, and it is known that 80 per cent of that abuse occurs at school. As well as this, research has found that homophobia experienced at school by gay students directly affects their academic achievement and engagement. From this, it is clear that something needs to be done to ensure that students are being educated on diversity in schools and being taught to accept their peers who identify as same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse students.

The Safe Schools program encourages schools to teach acceptance of gender diverse people and to promote a safer school environment for students. If a school wishes to become a member of the Safe Schools Coalition, they would need to formalise their membership by signing a membership form. By doing this, they are committing their school to work towards providing a safe school environment that is inclusive to the students and staff of the school.

Schools that are members of the Safe Schools program are not required to follow a set curriculum. The Safe Schools Coalition's All Of Us curriculum is offered to schools as a teaching resource but it is not a condition of membership in the Safe Schools Coalition to use the All Of Us curriculum.

The curriculum provides teachers with videos and activities that meet the Australian curriculum for health and physical education core outcomes. As well as the curriculum, schools are provided with optional support from Natalya Giffney. Natalya provides schools and teachers with professional development classes and also responds to phone calls from schools requiring assistance with some LGBTIQ students who are experiencing difficulties in schools.

It is important to note that schools that are members of the Safe Schools program are in control of how they wish to educate their students on gender diversity and inclusion of LGBTIQ people. Interestingly, the Safe Schools Coalition is not only supported by many public schools but is also supported by some prominent private schools, such as Eynesbury College, Pulteney Grammar, Scotch College and St Peter's College—to name a few.

There are some people who believe that the Safe Schools teaches children sexualised behaviour and that their children should not be exposed to the contents of this program. My counter to that is that we need to educate our children in schools to accept diversity amongst their peers, to put an end to homophobic and transphobic beliefs. We need to ensure that our schools are supportive of students from the LGBTIQ community and that they are not perpetrating an idea to students that there is something worrying about being gender diverse or same-sex attracted, which is not the case.

The Safe Schools program resources that should be available to teachers in our schools ensures that they have an understanding of gender diversity and how to handle homophobic or transphobic bullying in their classrooms. It is important to remember that schools have a duty of care to their students and teachers to provide a safe and supportive environment to the whole school community. Having this program present in our schools is allowing students that may be same-sex attracted, intersex, or gender diverse to discover their identity in a safe environment and encourages acceptance of gender diversity. I should note that yesterday was actually the International Day Against Homophobia.