From humble beginnings in Dandenong in 1979 began the Safety House Program.  Because of 12 reports of suspects loitering around the local neighbourhood in a 3 month period a parent, Max Williamson, searched for a way the make his neighbourhood safer.  Based on the simple idea of identifying safe houses and people for the children  of Woranna Park Primary to turn to should they need assistance when travelling to and from school, grew  an Australia wide safety program.  

With the assistance of the Victoria Police the initial idea of safety houses was formalised and spread to other schools and suburbs and was managed by a dedicated group of volunteers.  One by one other states followed Victoria’s lead and by the early 1990’s  Victoria had 500 local committees operating with 28,000 safety houses  throughout the state.   In the 80’s and early 90’s Safety House volunteers were usually stay at home mums and children still walked or rode their bikes to school  but between 1983 and 1992 everything seem to change.  An article by Bettina Cass in the publication, Family Matters no.37 April 1994, pp.20-27,  discusses the increased numbers of children requiring or attending day care services and the 1990 ABS Child Care Survey showed that slightly more than half (51.6 %) of all children under 12 years of age were in some form of child care arrangement . 

During the 2000’s we have seen a decline in the number of safety House Programs throughout Australia.  Recent studies indicate that  numbers of children in formal and informal child care are increasing as more mother’s return to the workforce for a variety of reasons.  Aside from work commitments there are other factors that have influenced the viability of local Safety House programs   such as parents driving their children to and from school due to time restraints or sporting commitments and the perception that it is no longer safe for children to be out and about their neighbourhoods!   Currently the Safety House programs in New South Wales, South Australia and most recently Tasmania have closed. 

In Victoria we have 121 active volunteer committees that involve 160 primary schools. These programs are open to both children and senior citizens to use any time they feel unsafe while out and about their local area.  So why have they continued while other committees around them have closed?  The one reason that has been identified over and over appears to be “community spirit“.  The most successful areas have schools and communities working together with parents helping out regularly, and not just because it directly affects their child.  School staff and administration are open, approachable and encouraging towards involving the wider community in activities with students.   In fact, what could possibly be considered old fashioned values!  Remember when the local school was a very big part of the community social scene?  Things like annual fetes, local junior sport like Saturday netball competition was held at the school and Sunday morning junior footy used to be played on the oval.  You hung around with your friends, siblings played on the playground and parents watched out for everyone’s kids. 

So thank you to the Local Safety House Community Committees and their schools for their efforts in keeping their  neighbourhoods safe.