Stirling mayor has admitted there is still a “long way to go” on child safeguarding after an organisation-wide review identified gaps in its policies, processes and practices.

Mark Irwin said the city was undertaking work to prepare for future enforcement of national principles and was striving for best practice in child safeguarding.

“We’ve taken some significant steps on our child safeguarding journey, but we know there’s still a long way to go,” he said.

“It’s a top priority for our organisation because we engage with young people every day through our programs, services, events and facilities, and we have a leadership role in our community.”

Mr Irwin said while the organisation-wide review against the national principles for child safe organisations had found strengths across the city, improvements had also been suggested.

“It also identified a need for overarching child safeguarding policy settings and processes,” he said.

“For example, the review recommended updating our codes of conduct, introducing a tailored complaints handling process for child safety concerns and embedding child safeguarding into workforce roles, responsibilities and training.”

The city worked with consultants after the review to turn the recommendations into a detailed child safety and wellbeing improvement plan.

The plan has 89 actions which will be prioritised over 10 stages which were endorsed by an “executive” in June.

The first stage, which Mr Irwin says the city is now implementing, focuses on the foundations of governance, structure and policy, with future work to include reviewing the city’s complaints procedures, embedding child safeguarding into all city roles, and developing a workforce-wide training plan.

“Initial priorities of the review included developing a detailed improvement plan and a child safeguarding policy framework, both of which have been completed,” he said.

“The policy is expected to be endorsed alongside an official statement of commitment, outlining our zero-tolerance approach to child abuse, neglect, exploitation and harm in any form.”

Mr Irwin also said the first meeting of the internal steering group was scheduled for October and the city’s child and safety wellbeing policy expected to be endorsed by the council before the end of the year.

The internal steering group members are currently being finalised but will include senior employees. It will be led by the community development directorate and oversee the implementation of the improvement plan.

The city hosted a child safeguarding forum on Tuesday, September 8, which bought together 250 people from a range of community groups, sport clubs, service providers and other organisations to discuss how to create safer environments for children.

The half-day forum, held in partnership with the WA Council of Social Service, focused on the national principles for child safe organisations and how organisations can put them into practice.

Commissioner for Children and Young People WA Dr Jacqueline McGowan-Jones and Youth Affairs Council of WA chief executive Kylie Wallace were at the forum.

Representatives from Anglicare WA and Child Australia also shared their experiences of embedding child safeguarding practices, including the challenges they faced and lessons learned.

Mr Irwin said the forum was an opportunity for organisations to learn from each other and access practical strategies to improve their own safeguarding practices.

“One of the primary messages of National Child Protection Week is that protecting children is everyone’s business, so it was encouraging to see leaders, staff and volunteers from a variety of organisations in the room,” he said.

“This forum was about giving participants access to practical strategies and resources that they can use to strengthen their processes.”

Mr Irwin said the city had reached a point “where a lot of the groundwork has been done and we need to turn the talk into action — this forum was part of that commitment”.