2021 National Child Protection Week posters are here!

To have printed copies of the posters sent to you, please order your posters by Wednesday 30 June.

This year, two posters have been created to support National Child Protection Week and the important theme:

Every child, in every community, needs a fair go.  To treat all of Australia’s children fairly, we need to make sure every family and community has what kids need to thrive and be healthy. 

The first poster is based on a beautiful artwork submitted from School Plus Worongary for NAPCAN’s Children’s Art Activity, which invites adults and children to talk about what is important in their community. Accompanying the artwork were these heartfelt words: 

“At School Plus Worongary we feel this is an extremely important topic and were interested in getting the children’s perspectives by opening up group time conversations around ‘What they thought would be important if they could design a neighbourhood where everyone had what they needed and felt safe’. As we continued to explore ideas, we were pleasantly surprised at the sense of social justice within the group. *M suggested we create a place with food for the homeless, B suggested a charity store so people could buy cheap clothing. Buses were suggested by H in case people didn’t have cars and W suggested ramp access to the library for people in wheelchairs. A vet and dog park were suggested as well as parks, rivers, waterfalls and trees and flowers. Extending on our discussions around what our neighbourhood should look like, the children were given a piece of recycled paper to draw a picture of their neighbourhood idea. Again, it was heartening to see the natural way that the children are inclusive. The children are very pleased with, and proud of, the neighbourhood they have created.”  (*For privacy we have used first name initials only.)

The second poster, Deep Listening – Culture Keeps Us Safe, has been created to support the theme ‘To treat all of Australia’s children fairly, we need to make sure every family and community has what kids need to thrive and be healthy’. NAPCAN thanks the artist, Shirleen Campbell, Alice Springs, for sharing her knowledge from First Nations culture on the importance of deep listening in creating strong communities for children. We invite you to use this poster to begin conversations in your community about connection, culture and belonging. (Note that this artwork was originally created by the artist for NAPCAN’s new protective behaviours program, Safer Communities for Children. )

The artwork illustrates the Grandmothers’ Story: “As you may know, in Aboriginal culture, our country and its landscape are our classroom. We connect to country as we learn and grow into adults. Our country is always ready to teach our mob and to look after us. This painting shows two grandmothers (sisters) sitting around the campfire teaching the young girls and boys about growing up and walking in two worlds. Here you can see the two grandmothers, emu footprints, bush tucker and spinifex. The boys and girls are sitting around their campfires using deep listening to learn about country and being ready for the two worlds. The footprints are the grandmothers walking around.”