By Eric Martin
Archdiocesan Safeguarding Office Director Andrea Musulin has this week released the second video in her new video series, Story Time.
Story Time is a 10-week online selection of books for children aged four to ten and this week’s story is a book called I’ve got a feeling, written by Stephanie Reeder.
The story works through a range of emotions that a child could feel, from happy and excited to shy and bored, making children more aware of their emotional responses and familiarising them with how they can expect to feel in specific circumstances.
At the back of the book there are resources that allow parents to discuss each emotion in greater detail with their child.
“It is important that parents teach their children about such matters as they have little to no knowledge on these subjects,” Mrs Musulin said.
“Children have many different baskets of knowledge on a range of subjects in their brain, however often the basket of knowledge for sex and personal safety is empty.
“In order to work towards keeping children safe, education is a major tool,” she continued.
Ms Musulin explained that teaching personal safety to children through storybooks is an effective way for them to learn and for the parents to teach as parents may not have the knowledge to do so.
“We find that teaching children personal safety with storybooks has a prominent role within the age group of four to 10,” she said.
Parents, are encouraged to try watch the ten story books listed on The Record website with their children. Each story is read aloud, with clear footage of each page allowing children to follow along.
The Archdiocese of Perth’s Safeguarding Program is a comprehensive initiative instigated at the behest of Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB, in response to the generational scourge of child abuse that has rocked the Catholic Church at the highest levels. The Safeguarding Program has now expanded to include Story Time, a range of online reading of resources designed to keep children safe through the power of education and awareness.
Ms Andrea Muslin, the Director of the Safeguarding Program, is highly regarded throughout WA as a powerful trainer and successful advocate and innovator in the prevention of child sexual abuse.
“My work has taught me that child abuse is a silent genocide that does not discriminate, but affects all races and religions, and the majority of abuse occurs in children’s homes” Ms Muslin said.
“the Royal Commission has shown us that the sexual abuse of children is widespread and the very nature of child abuse means that those who commit these crimes are likely to gravitate to a wide range of organisations, of which the Catholic Church is but one of many.”
Recognising that there is no fool-proof system for the complete prevention of all forms of abuse, the Safeguarding Program is informed by the 12 National Standards which incorporate elements of public health interventions to prevent the abuse of children, minimise the risk of abuse by heightening the likelihood that abuse will be detected, and reduce the long-term impacts of abuse on children.
“Educating children is one way we can minimise risk, reduce opportunity and increase detection” Ms Musulin said.
Andrea was a police officer for 30 years and during this time specialised in the areas of crime prevention, child protection & domestic violence and was the Officer in Charge of the WA Police Family Unit and later the Intensive Family Support Project. Alongside this work she managed and contributed largely to Protective Behaviours WA Inc. a not for profit child safety organisation before taking up the position of Director of the Safeguarding Program for the Perth Catholic Archdiocese.
In March 2011 Andrea was Inducted into the WA Inaugural Women’s Hall of Fame as a Leader and Pioneer in the Child Protection industry.
“A number of years ago I wrote the safeguarding resource called Protecting God’s Children, a Catholic parents’ guide to keeping their children safe,” Ms Muslin said.
“In this resource we recommend and list story books for children that support the themes concepts and strategies of the protective behaviours educational program. Every week we are now going to bring you Story Time, an initiative that compliments this resource”.