Children’s safety and wellbeing comes first.
Early Learning Victoria's practices protect children from child abuse and harm. We promote the Victorian Child Safe Standards and have zero tolerance for child abuse.
Every child deserves a nurturing and safe environment to learn and grow. We engage with families, children and communities with respect. We create safe spaces that encourage children and families to take part and have a voice. These spaces allow people to feel safe and comfortable expressing their culture.
Children’s rights are at the centre of everything we do. This includes our leadership, services, programs, policies and practices. See Our commitment to child safety on our website.
1. Scope
Early Learning Victoria has a duty of care for all children who attend its centres.
This policy applies to families, staff, management and visitors of Early Learning Victoria centres. This includes volunteers, students on placement and contractors or labour-hire employees of Early Learning Victoria.
This policy covers all activities at an Early Learning Victoria centre that offers education and care for children.
2. Policy statement
We provide environments where children are safe and feel safe.
Everyone in our community has a duty to act safely and appropriately towards children. This policy describes these different duties. It also guides Early Learning Victoria to ensure children’s safety and wellbeing in all our work.
Early Learning Victoria follows the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations(opens in a new window) and the Victorian Child Safe Standards.
We treat all observations, suspicions, allegations, disclosures and incidents of child abuse, grooming or inappropriate conduct seriously. This includes following the Protecting children and mandatory reporting procedure.
We follow a strict investigation process and notify authorities as needed. We identify risks to children and work to reduce or remove them. This includes risks in physical and online environments.
We consider a child’s right to privacy, access to information, social connections and learning opportunities.
We support everyone in our organisation to recognise and value the strengths of Aboriginal culture. This is vital to the wellbeing and safety of Aboriginal children.
2.1 Requirements
Early Learning Victoria centres follow the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 (the National Law) and the Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 (the Regulations).
Services must, by law, take all reasonable steps to protect children from harm or injury. They must follow the Victorian Child Safe Standards. They must not discipline children unreasonably, including any form of corporal (physical) punishment.
Educators need to interact with children in a positive way, as stated in the Regulations. This means guiding children in a positive way and respecting their dignity and rights.
Educators need to support children to develop positive relationships with other children, staff and volunteers (see the Positive relationships, interactions and behaviour support policy, the Child safety code of conduct and the National Law.)
Staff must report any alleged breaches of the National Law or Regulations. They must also report any incidents or allegations about children’s safety or wellbeing to the nominated supervisor or another member of the centre leadership team. If the allegation is about the nominated supervisor, staff must report their concerns to the area manager or the Director, Early Years Service.
Early Learning Victoria must report all incidents, allegations or suspected breaches to the Regulatory Authority within 24 hours of learning about them.
Early Learning Victoria staff are crucial in keeping children safe. They can spot signs or behaviours that may indicate child abuse or the risk of it.
Early Learning Victoria staff must inform the Early Learning Victoria centre leadership team, and/or authorities like the Regulatory Authority or Victoria Police, if they:
- witness an incident
- receive a disclosure
- form a reasonable belief that a child has been abused or is at risk of being abused.
All Early Learning Victoria staff must be aware of their obligations under the current child protection laws. They must report the above to their nominated supervisor or another member of the centre leadership team as soon as possible. If the allegation is about the nominated supervisor, staff must report their concerns to the area manager or Director, Early Years Services as soon as possible.
Staff members can report their concerns in person, by phone or in writing.
For more information, see the Protecting children policy and the Protecting children and mandatory reporting procedure.
Child Safe Standards
Services in Victoria must follow the Child Safe Standards. This is required under the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 and the National Law.
Child Safe Standards mean all organisations delivering services to children must have policies, procedures and practices to keep children safe. All organisations must create a culture of child safety.
For more information on how the Child Safe Standards support child protection and the handling of abuse allegations, see the Protecting children policy and the Child and family violence information sharing policy.
Reportable conduct scheme
Under this scheme, Early Learning Victoria must notify the Social Services Regulator (SSR) and the Regulatory Authority of any suspected abuse by staff or volunteers (see Definitions).
Early Learning Victoria must also have strong internal investigation processes and systems in place. These need to respond to any allegations of abuse, child safety misconduct or concerns about interactions between educators and children.
There are 5 categories of reportable conduct:
- physical violence (against or in the presence of a child)
- sexual offences (against or in the presence of a child)
- sexual misconduct (against or in the presence of a child)
- behaviour that causes significant emotional or psychological harm
- significant neglect.
All Early Learning Victoria staff must report allegations of reportable conduct made against staff and volunteers to their nominated supervisor or another member of the centre leadership team as soon as possible. If the allegation is about the nominated supervisor, staff must report their concerns to the area manager or Director, Early Years Services.
Staff can report their concerns in person, over the phone or in writing. For more information, see the Protecting children policy and the Protecting children and mandatory reporting procedure.
Duty of care
Duty of care means you have a legal duty to avoid actions that might harm someone else. This includes failing to take action to prevent something happening.
In relation to children, this may include (but is not limited to):
- acting on concerns and suspicions of abuse as soon as possible
- reporting incidents or observations of educator-to-child interactions that may breach the Regulations, National Law, the Child Safe Standards, Early Learning Victoria policies or the Child safety code of conduct
- seeking appropriate advice or consulting with other professionals or agencies
- reporting any suspected child abuse to the right authorities, like Victoria Police and Child Protection
- arranging counselling and/or other appropriate welfare support for the child
- providing ongoing support to the child
- sharing information with other Early Learning Victoria staff (who will be responsible for providing ongoing support to the child).
Child information sharing and privacy
There are 3 linked information sharing schemes and frameworks. These allow professionals working with children to share information to:
- promote the wellbeing or safety of children
- better assess and manage family violence risk to children and adults.
They are:
- Child Information Sharing Scheme
- Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme
- Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM).
For more information, see the Child and family violence information sharing policy.
Record-keeping requirements
Records about an incident, illness, injury or trauma must be kept until the child is 25. This includes records about events at Early Learning Victoria, as well as outside Early Learning Victoria.
Records about the death of a child must be kept until the end of 7 years after the death. This includes a death while being cared for, or that may have happened because of something that happened while being cared for.
All documentation about child sexual abuse incidents, allegations and disclosures must be kept for 99 years after the action is completed. This includes for all unproven incidents.
Early Learning Victoria centre staff and Early Learning Victoria management must not throw out or destroy any records about child sexual abuse incidents, allegations or disclosures. To do so, they must first ask the Knowledge, Privacy and Records Division of the Department of Education (the department).
See also the Records management policy.
3. Actions and procedures
3.1 Responsibilities of families
Families should take action if they are worried that any organisation is not keeping their child or other children safe.
We encourage families to:
- talk to their centre director or someone from the Early Learning Victoria leadership team about any concerns and what to do next (see the Handling complaints and feedback policy)
- contact the Regulatory Authority on 1300 307 415, Child Protection or the Social Services Regulator if Early Learning Victoria does not address their concerns
- report concerns of child abuse or grooming to Victoria Police if they feel it is right to do so
- read about our policies and procedures on our website (or ask us for a copy) and give feedback
- tell us about their child’s concerns, preferences and needs
- share their culture and their child’s culture and exercise their cultural rights at the centre
- follow the Code of conduct for families and the Electronic devices and photography policy. This means not using personal electronic devices or taking videos or photographs at the centre.
3.2 Responsibilities of staff
All Early Learning Victoria staff, the approved provider and ‘persons with management or control’ (PMC) must follow this policy and the 11 Child Safe Standards.
All Early Learning Victoria staff must also understand and follow the Child safety code of conduct, Protecting children policy and Protecting children and mandatory reporting procedure. These policies detail appropriate behaviour and responsibilities for child safety and wellbeing.
Educators, volunteers, students, visitors (including Early Learning Victoria central office staff) and contractors or labour-hire employees of Early Learning Victoria must:
- read this policy
- follow Early Learning Victoria’s commitment to each Child Safe Standard and put in place each standard as stated
- raise concerns or observations with the centre leadership team if they think this policy has been breached, or is at risk of being breached.
Centre leadership teams, the nominated supervisor and responsible persons must:
- ensure all staff can access, understand and consistently follow this policy
- ensure that all staff consider this policy as part of their daily practice
- promote a culture of child safety by role modelling appropriate behaviours and commitments made within this policy
- take all reports and concerns about child safety and wellbeing from staff, families and children seriously. This includes any signs of grooming
- respond to any reports and concerns according to this policy.
The approved provider and PMC must:
- regularly review and endorse this policy
- ensure that centre leadership teams follow this policy and all other child-safety-related policies
- ensure that centre leadership teams report all concerns and incidents in the right way
- ensure that staff have support to properly understand this policy and their requirements under the Child Safe Standards, the National Law and Child Protection Law
- provide training, coaching and mentoring about the Child Safe Standards to centre leadership teams and centre staff.
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