We sat down with Connie Borg to discuss her upcoming panel presentation at the Little People Big Dreams conference and explore the crucial shift from compliance to vigilance in child safety.
Connie has over 25 years’ experience in a variety of community and education and care services, specialising in infants and toddlers. Along with strong community involvement, Connie believes support and guidance to build educator capacity is the best way to drive quality sustainable practice.
Connie has been with Child Australia for over three years and is passionate about the professional development and growth of educators in the Early Education and Care sector. As team leader for the sector specialist crew at Child Australia, she provides training and development for people who work in the early years sector and out-of-school-hours care, along with mentoring and coaching services.

Can you tell us about your panel at the upcoming Little People Big Dreams conference?
I’ll be presenting alongside Selena Bartlett, Katie Brennan, and Nicole Talarico on a panel called “Child Safety in Plain Sight.” Our focus is really to strengthen child safety across all early childhood services. We want to enhance professional accountability and create a safeguarding culture where everyone looks at how we’re safeguarding children.
It’s important to remember that child protection is an adult responsibility—it’s not up to children to disclose to us. It’s up to us adults to keep children safe. We’ll touch on the national principles for child safety organisations, but our main goal is to restore community trust in the sector.

What does the shift from compliance to vigilance look like in practice?
While we all know our regulatory obligations around safeguarding children, vigilance is about calling each other out when we see behaviors that might not be above board. We’re not talking about problematic behaviour necessarily, but behaviour that might be seen as problematic. In Australia, we call this “amber light behaviour.”
This means being on amber alert and seeing what people might be doing that needs a reminder. For example, always singling out the same children to help with jobs, picking the same children to spend lots of time with, or consistently having favourites. We want to ensure all children get equal attention, because if someone was going to groom children, these are some of the behaviours they might display.
The key is calling it out by saying, “This is our policy and procedure around this behaviour—we don’t want to allow these behaviours to happen.”

How will this vigilant approach impact children in early learning environments?
We’re hoping children will start learning what’s safe and unsafe around adult behaviour. Again, we don’t want to make it children’s responsibility, but we want safe environments where children know what safety feels like. They know adults are looking out for them and calling out things that shouldn’t be done.
We’re talking to children about consent—asking “Is it okay if I pat you to sleep? Would you like me to brush your hair? Would you like a hug or a high five?” Getting them used to adults asking for consent means when people aren’t asking, they’ll hopefully question that.

Can you share some practical tips for teaching consent to children of all ages?
Children will always do what you do, so if we’re practicing consent, we’re indirectly teaching them to ask other children for consent around touching, hitting, or taking things. We’re normalising asking for consent.
Even with babies, when we say “Can I change your nappy?” they give lots of social cues. They might turn their body away, put their eyes down, or if they can walk, move away from you. There are many ways babies communicate their preferences.
This extends to photos too. Think about adults—when you say you’ll put their photo on social media, many will say no. We don’t ask children that. We just display their photos everywhere. Are they modest? Is their dress down properly? Are they dirty? Would they want everyone to see that photo? We should ask children for consent and be mindful about the situations we photograph them in.

How can educators support colleagues who might not feel comfortable addressing amber light behaviours?
This is a work in progress. Many educators find it difficult to call out colleagues, but when I ask if having a policy backing them up would make it easier, they say yes. You can easily say “We need to do sleep checks every five minutes” because there’s a policy supporting it.
I’ve been talking to centres about creating a register system. If you can’t say something directly to a colleague, you can go to your centre director and say, “This keeps happening and it’s against our policy. Can you help me or remind this person of our policy?” We might start documenting these instances—noting when it’s the fifth time we’ve had to ask someone to seek consent for nappies or photos, or to stop taking the same children to help with tasks.

What changes might families notice as a result of these practices?
Families will notice educators asking for children’s consent more frequently—things like “Is it okay if I take you from mum?” during morning handover. They might hear children talking about their body parts using correct terminology, which is a big child safety component. Children should be taught and educated about their anatomy using the correct terminology.
Families will also see increased focus on children’s emotional wellbeing and emotional intelligence. Centres will be really looking at children’s emotional responses and supporting their psychosocial development.

Will you provide resources to help families with these changes, particularly around using correct terminology?
Absolutely. We’ll work with early learning centres to hold family meetings discussing the importance of this approach as it is a team effort when educating children. When children are talking about having a sore elbow, sore vagina, or sore vulva, it should all be the same way of communicating about their body—not something we don’t talk about, or not something that feels inappropriate. 
I understand this can be difficult culturally for some families and educators. For those who find it challenging, I suggest practicing by saying the words out loud to a doll somewhere private, so you can start using this language comfortably in the centre.

What common misconceptions will your session address?
One major misconception is about children’s ability to convey what they need to adults. Children of all ages can convey their needs and their “no”—it’s up to adults to look, listen, and see what the child is trying to communicate.
The Early Years Learning Framework and National Quality Standards talk about tuning into children. If we really do this, we can see their discomfort, uncertainty, and non-verbal cues. They don’t need words—we can provide them. For example, “I know you’re nodding, but I can see your shoulders going up and you’re moving away from me. I think you might actually want to say no.” Often they’ll nod in agreement.
Unfortunately, children are socialised to believe all adults know best, that we should listen to adults, do as we’re told, and not make a fuss. This construct stops children from saying no to adults. Think about the messages we give: “Be good at school, do what your teacher tells you, sit still for the doctor—they’re there to help you, and I’ll give you ice cream afterwards.” All these well-meaning statements can inadvertently make children vulnerable and stop them from saying no to adults. It’s hard enough for children to say no to adults they love and trust.

Any final thoughts for our readers?
Learning never stops—we’re always learning. Children are great teachers, and we can learn so much from what they say, do, and how they are in the world.
I’d also like to mention that Child Australia is developing a “See It, Stop It, Say It” campaign—an adult traffic light behaviour system in response to child sexual abuse prevention. This initiative will provide clear, practical tools for creating safer environments for children.

If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t miss the chance to hear Connie Borg live at the Little People Big Dreams Conference 2025. The Northern Territory’s leading Children’s Learning & Development Conference is back! After last year’s sell-out conference, they’re returning bigger and better with more national and local presentations highlighting innovation, the latest research and best practice.

Your ticket includes keynote presentations, concurrent sessions, workshops, entry to The Market Place exhibition, full-day catering, networking sundowner event, and the chance to win door prizes. It’s an event you won’t want to miss! Book your ticket now!