Child safety in early childhood education and care
All children have the right to experience quality education and care in a safe and healthy environment. It’s important to understand what a child safe service looks like, both when choosing an early childhood education and care (ECEC) service for your child, and throughout their ECEC journey.
Resources for parents and carers
As a parent or carer, you play an important role in supporting your child’s safety in ECEC.
This starts with being aware of what ECEC services should be doing to keep your child safe and feeling confident to speak with your child’s service about their child safe practices.
All ECEC and outside school hours care (OOSH) services are required to:
- comply with the National Law and Regulations
- implement the Child Safe Standards under the NSW Child Safe Scheme.
The department has developed a suite of resources to support you to understand and recognise child safe practices in ECEC settings and know what to expect from your child’s service.
- Child safe early childhood education and care services fact sheet (PDF 219 KB) explains what a child safe ECEC service looks like.
- Child safe guide for parents and carers (PDF 117 KB) includes a checklist for parents and carers to consider when choosing an ECEC service and questions to ask during discussions with services.
Approved providers and services are encouraged to share these resources with families and to engage in proactive conversations about the ways you support the safety of children in your care.
Transparency is essential in ensuring children are kept safe. A service’s compliance history should be readily available to parents and carers, and you can request a copy of this from the service at any time.
What to do if you have concerns about your child’s service
If you have any suggestions, concerns, or complaints about your child's ECEC service, the first step is to talk to the director, manager, or a staff member at the service.
When talking to the service you should:
- ask to see the service’s complaints policy or written procedures
- be clear about the issue and the outcome you’re hoping for
- ask questions about the circumstances of the topic or issue you wish to discuss
- be informed – ask to see the relevant service's policies and procedures or access a copy of the National Law and Regulations on the ACECQA website.
Your child's service is obligated to respond to your feedback or complaint and must notify the department within 24 hours if your complaint alleges that:
- a child’s health, safety or wellbeing has been compromised
- the service has not complied with the National Law or Regulations.
Raising concerns with the NSW Department of Education
If the service doesn't address your concern, or you feel it’s inappropriate to raise it with them, you can contact the NSW Department of Education as the regulatory authority for ECEC directly.
Contact the department on 1800 619 113 if you have serious concerns about the health, safety and wellbeing of a child. This includes complaints about neglect, physical, sexual or emotional harm or abuse. Your call can be anonymous if you wish.
Learn more about how to give feedback or make a complaint about an ECEC service.
How the department manages child safety
As the NSW Regulatory Authority for ECEC, the department regulates ECEC and OOSH services and works to ensure that children are kept safe and have access to quality education and care.
Our regulatory responsibilities include:
- enforcing compliance with the National Law and Regulations including investigating serious incidents that occur in ECEC services
- working and sharing information with other agencies such as the Office of the Children’s Guardian to support the sector to be child safe
- responding to reports of incidents, suspected incidents and concerns relating to the safety and wellbeing of children in ECEC
- assessing and rating services against the National Quality Standard, to support children’s learning and development and services’ continuous quality improvement
- supporting ECEC and OOSH services to uplift in child safe culture, behaviours and practices by providing advice, training and resources.
Learn more about our role.