Child safe recruitment and employment practices

Guidance for approved providers, service leaders, staff and volunteers.

Robust child safe recruitment, screening, induction and employment processes are critical to keeping children safe. They also support attracting and retaining suitable and skilled staff who understand and uphold their important role.

Under Regulation 168 of the Education and Care Services National Regulations (NSW) it is mandatory for services to outline clear child-safe recruitment and employment practices in their staffing policies and procedures.

These requirements commenced 24 April 2026. The guidance below outlines what providers and services must do to implement these changes and ensure the recruitment and employment practices are child safe.

Child-safe recruitment practices

Staffing policies and procedures must outline how your service embeds child safe practice into recruitment and onboarding, including how it conducts reasonable enquiries to verify a person’s suitability before they start working.

Reasonable enquiries involve taking proactive and thorough steps to confirm that any person working or volunteering in an early learning service is suitable to work with children and not subject to any restrictions or prohibitions.

8 steps to child safe recruitment

Follow these steps when recruiting new staff or volunteers:

Role description – include child safe criteria in your role or position description.
Job advertisement – include a commitment to your organisation being child safe.
Shortlisting – review applications for evidence of understanding and commitment to child safety
Interviews – include scenario-based questions to assess a candidate's integrity, attitudes towards children and knowledge of and commitment to child safety
Referee checks – collect at least 2 verbal reference checks from previous employers, including the most recent, to verify the applicant’s work history and experience, and confirm their conduct, integrity and suitability to work with children. Reference checks should include specific enquiries about:
- any reportable allegations, prior allegations or concerns related to child safety or misconduct
- if the person has displayed any concerning or inappropriate behaviour
Background checks – undertake robust employment screening. This should include but not be limited to:
- Verifying a persons identify
- verifying qualifications (including early childhood education and first aid), assessing their legitimacy by carefully reviewing certificates and transcripts. Check for spelling errors, consistency, Registered Training Organisation (RTO) validation and ensuring the qualification is ACECQA-approved. Check the National Training Register to ensure the RTO was operating at the time of issue and not subject to any actions by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA).
- ensuring staff (including volunteers, students and other staff) have a verified WWCC through the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian.
- verifying through the National Quality Agenda IT System (NQA ITS) if an individual is a prohibited person or suspended.
- requesting declarations from the individual about their suitability and any current restrictions, including enforceable undertakings, suspension notices, supervision notices or training orders. This may include using the Prohibition, suspension and supervision notice and enforcement action declaration for prospective staff members and volunteers (PDF 103 KB). This form is optional to use and does not need to be lodged with the Commission.
- requesting a National Police Check (i.e. a national criminal history check) as an additional screening measure to complement the legislated WWCC and verifying it. While the WWCC specifically assesses a person’s suitability to work with children by identifying child-related offences and relevant misconduct, a National Police Check provides a broader overview of an individual’s criminal history, including offences not related to children. This broader visibility can assist employers in identifying convictions, that may be relevant to recruitment decisions and overall workplace safety.
Child safe inductions – provide a structured induction process that includes training, comprehensive briefing on policies and procedures, and orientation to service specific environments and contexts.
Ongoing child safe employment practice – ensure staff complete mandatory training, provide ongoing supervision and complete regular checks to ensure all staff remain suitable to work with children. Ensure staff maintain up-to-date knowledge of child protection law and their obligations under these laws.

Things that may warrant closer scrutiny

Employment history with multiple employers – this may indicate the person is not suitable to work with children, and additional referee checks may need to be conducted.
Gaps in employment history – a person may intentionally leave off services where they have worked when they were the subject of complaints or performance concerns. Probe gaps in employment history and consider additional referee checks.
References or referees from colleagues (not direct line managers), friends or family members – this may indicate that the person is unable to obtain a reference from a current or former direct supervisor. Do not accept references from anyone that did not directly manage the person seeking employment.

Child safe recruitment toolkit

The NSW Early Learning Commission has developed a child safe recruitment toolkit to support services with embedding child safe recruitment practices:

Ongoing child-safe employment practices

Staffing policy and procedures must also outline how you will implement ongoing child-safe employment practices in your service and continually monitor the suitability of staff to work with children.

Download our Child safe recruitment, induction and training sample policy (DOCX 325 KB) to help embed ongoing child-safe employment practices in your service.

Negative notices

A negative notice indicates that a person is not suitable to work with children. This may include if a person:

becomes a disqualified person under the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012

is subject to an interim bar under the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012

has their application for a WWCC clearance refused

has their WWCC clearance cancelled

receives a mutual recognition negative notice within the meaning of the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012.

Notification requirements

Staff must notify their approved provider in writing if:

they receive a negative Working with Children Check notice from the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian or another jurisdiction, or
there is a change to their teacher accreditation or registration.

Staff must do this within 72 hours of the event occurring or within 24 hours of becoming aware of the change.

Approved providers must notify the NSW Early Learning Commission if they become aware that a staff member at their service has received a negative Working with Children Check notice or a change to their accreditation or registration. This notification must be submitted via email to information@earlylearningcommission.nsw.gov.au within 24 hours of becoming aware of the event.

Follow your service’s child safety procedures and keep a record of the actions taken in response to a negative notice or change to a staff member’s accreditation or registration.

Penalties apply under section 188A where false or misleading information is provided to an approved provider, service or recruitment agency in relation to a relevant notice. This includes suspension notices, supervision notices and prohibition notices.

Working with Children Checks

Anyone working (including volunteers) in early childhood education and care who is 18 years or above must hold a current Working with Children Check (WWCC) clearance before commencing, unless they are exempt from requiring one under the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012.

A WWCC is an assessment of a person’s ability to work safely with children based on any known incidents that indicate the person poses a risk of harm to children. It involves a National Police Check (criminal history record check) and a review of any findings of misconduct under the Reportable Conduct Scheme.

Verifying Working with Children Checks

Approved providers and services must verify WWCC clearances before staff or volunteers (including agency staff) commence employment at their service, and every time the WWCC is renewed.

The verification must be completed through the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian’s (OCG) online portal, which links an employee with their employer in the OCG’s continuous monitoring system. If an employee’s WWCC clearance is suspended or barred, the approved provider will be notified by the OCG.

Service policies and procedures should clearly outline processes for ensuring WWCCs are checked and verified before an educator, including volunteers, students and other staff, can engage in child-related employment at the service, and who is responsible for this process. This should include ensuring the ongoing validity of WWCC clearances.

WWCC requirements for family day care services

For family day care (FDC) services, the approved provider must also ensure FDC assistants and all people aged 18 years or over who reside at an FDC residence (regulation 163) have a current and verified WWCC clearance. Keep accurate records to ensure you continue to meet your obligations.

Staff, volunteers or students under the age of 18

Individuals under 18 years old are exempt from holding a WWCC. This means there is no restriction on engaging a staff member, volunteer or student who is under 18 years old in a service.

Under the Education and Care Services National Regulations, educators under the age of 18 must not work alone at a service and must be adequately supervised by an educator over the age of 18 at all times (regulation 120). Persons in day-to-day charge, nominated supervisors and family day care educators and assistants must be at least 18 years old (regulation 117B, 117C and 119).

Additional child safe strategies to consider if engaging someone under 18 might include:

providing clear expectations about staff interactions with children
review of onboarding and induction processes, and providing additional training and guidance for new staff as required
organisations should undertake a police check if needed (a guardian is required to sign on behalf of the person under 18).

Maintain accurate records

Services must keep clear and up-to-date records that demonstrate compliance with child-safe recruitment and ongoing child-safe employment obligations.

Learn more about what records you must keep during recruitment, onboarding and throughout a staff member’s employment.