Respect at Uni Week 2025 – Shining a Light on Respect

The Safeguarding and Student Safety Team are grateful to everyone within our ACU community who engaged and participated with Respect at Uni Week 2025. This year we focused on Shining a Light on Respect. We wanted to shine the light on hard topics and conversations to empower our students to be able to talk about sensitive and difficult themes safely. There were so many important, engaging and inclusive conversations throughout our campuses.

It is so encouraging to hear our ACU community chat about respect, relationships, consent, equality and inclusion among many other relevant topics. There were also conversations centred around the Safety Support Network keychain torches and drink covers. These conversations help ACU campuses and our wider community be a safer place for all.

A big thank you to Student Life, the Ally Network, the Safety Support Officers and Campus Ministry for all the support in making this week a great success.

We are committed to creating safe environments free from violence, and each of us plays a vital role in preventing and addressing sexual harassment, sexual assault and family and domestic violence.

Safeguarding and Student Safety Team

The Safeguarding and Student Safety Team work directly with students to support them through disclosures of sexual harassment, sexual assault, family and domestic violence, historical child abuse or any other unwanted or unwelcomed behaviour. The team provide students seeking support with trauma-informed care as well as informing them of both internal and external support services, safety strategies and reporting options.

What we do:

Awareness and prevention

We provide education and awareness on respectful relationships, gender-based violence, sexual harm, bystander action, how to report harm to ACU and train and support our Safety Support Officers. These are specially trained ACU staff members who assist the ACU community with disclosures of sexual misconduct and/or family and domestic violence.

Response

We provide short term case management support which is trauma informed, and student led. We respond to any disclosure of sexual harm, family and domestic violence, historical child abuse or any other inappropriate behaviour regardless of where or when it happened.

Support and compliance

We can support staff who are assisting a student through a disclosure. For further guidance, information is available on how to respond to a disclosure on the Respect. Now. Always. website.

We also maintain the university’s compliance to overarching national and legal standards.

Referrals:

We welcome referrals from both students and ACU staff. If you are referring a student to our team, you must have their consent to do so first. If you are unsure whether to make a referral, or if you just want to chat, please reach out to the team. We can be contacted via:

• Emailing us at respectandsafety@acu.edu.au
• Calling us on (03) 9230 8811
• Making a disclosure or report online
• Contact a Safety Support Officer

For more information about Safeguarding at ACU, please visit the Respect. Now. Always. webpage.

Support services:

For other support services please contact:

• EAP provider - Acacia EAP on 1300 364 273
• 1800 RESPECT (24/7) - 1800 737 732
• Full Stop Australia (24/7) - 1800 385 578
• Mens Line (24/7) - 1300 78 99 78