Child safety and compliance

Early childhood education and care services are required to create and maintain safe environments for children.

Everyone has a role in keeping children safe in education and care services:

• Approved providers (who operate services) must create and maintain a child safe culture in all aspects of their service environments. This requirement covers both physical and online environments.
• Services need to be proactive in creating and maintaining a child safe culture in their day to day practice. This can be achieved through both the relationships and interactions educators have with children, and the documents (like policies and procedures that support their work.
• State and territory regulatory authorities monitor services and providers to ensure they comply with their legal obligations and meet national standards for safety, quality, and compliance.
• ACECQA overseas the implementation of the National Quality Framework (also known as the NQF) across the country, and provides resources to support approved providers and services to create and maintain child safe environments.

State and territory regulatory authorities monitor approved providers and their services to assess and promote compliance with the National Law and Regulations. Monitoring is a proactive way of assessing and influencing service quality.

Regulatory authorities may identify non-compliance through direct monitoring of services and approved providers or from complaints received directly from the public.

Regulatory authorities actively monitor services and approved providers through:

• Assessing and rating services against the National Quality Standard (NQS). This may involve the service completing a self-assessment and staff from the regulatory authority visiting the service. Assessment and rating may also include interviews, phone calls, emails and video conferences between the regulatory authority and the service or approved provider. Assessment and rating encourages continuous improvement by engaging the approved provider and the service in a process of self-evaluation, as well as providing a detailed report of their performance against the NQS.
• Short notice or unannounced visits to services. These visits are used to monitor a service’s compliance with the National Law and Regulations; investigate complaints, incidents, or risks to children's safety and wellbeing; and observe routine daily service operations. Sometimes, little or no prior notice is given to the service before a visit, so that daily practice can be viewed.

Longer notice monitoring visits to services. These visits encourage providers and others to comply with their obligations and provides preparation time for the visit. For example, ensuring certain paperwork is readily available or particular staff members are present.

Targeted campaigns. These campaigns look at the way services and approved providers are complying with a specific issue of concern that is a priority to the regulatory authority.

Look for the ‘Last visited date’ in the Regulatory activities section on their service page on StartingBlocks.gov.au.

Consequences for not complying with (breaching) the National Law and Regulations vary based on the risk posed to children and the provider’s history of compliance.

Compliance actions that a regulatory authority can take include:

• Conditions being placed on a service or provider approval which require the service or provider to undertake specific actions to be compliant
• Financial penalties
• Compliance notices or directions which include formal instructions for a service to rectify compliance issues.
• Emergency action notices which require immediate steps to be taken by the provider to address serious risks at a service.
• Enforceable undertakings which are legally binding agreements between a regulatory authority and an individual that sets out what that individual will do or refrain from doing to comply with National Law and Regulations.
• Prohibition notices: which prevent individuals from working in services or from having leadership roles in services.
• Suspension or cancellation of provider or service approval: In extreme cases, the provider or service may temporary or permanently lose their approval to operate.

Regulatory authorities use a risk-based approach to determine enforcement actions. If a breach is assessed to pose a serious risk to children, more severe actions such as prosecution or cancellation of approval may be taken.

Look for ‘Conditions’ in the Regulatory activities section on their service or provider page on StartingBlocks.gov.au.

• Can I see your register of compliance actions against the service?
• Can I see your Code of Conduct and service philosophy?
• How does the service follow the Child Safe Organisation Principles?
• Does the service use the NQF Child Safe Culture and NQF Online Safety Guides?
• What behaviour guidance policies are in place at the service to promote children's wellbeing and safety? Can you give some examples of what this looks like at the service?
• Have any of your educators, while working at the service, been reported for inappropriate discipline? If yes, what was the situation and how was it corrected?
• What are the qualifications of the educators who will be caring for and educating my children?
• How many educators are still studying for their qualifications?
• What ongoing child safety/child protection professional development do staff participate in and how frequently does this occur?
• What is the staff turnover like?