Children's Act 2014 – early learning sector requirements

All early learning services must have a child protection policy and safety check their children’s workers. These are requirements under the Children's Act 2014. They are also required under our licensing and certification criteria. As well as applying to early learning services, the Children's Act 2014 requirements also apply to any organisation we fund to provide services to children.

We've developed a guide to help you navigate the Children's Act 2014. The guide brings together a range of information and resources already published, and complements the advice and guidelines produced by the Children’s Action Plan. We recommend you use the guide in conjunction with the other resources and the licensing criteria and guidance, outlined below.

The Children’s Amendment Act 2018 (external link) changed the name of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014 to Children’s Act 2014 (external link) . We have updated our website content to reflect this, wherever possible. However, there may still be some content on our website or in attached tools that still refers to the Vulnerable Children Act – any reference to the Vulnerable Children Act 2014 should be read as a reference to the Children’s Act 2014.

Download Vulnerable Children Act 2014 - a practical guide [PDF, 5.2 MB]

Child Protection Policy

All early learning services must have a child protection policy in place now. The policy must:

  • contain provisions on the identification and reporting of child neglect and abuse, and
  • be written, and
  • be reviewed every 3 years.

The child protection policy licensing criteria and guidance provide detailed information on how to meet this requirement:

The guidelines Safer organisations, Safer children [PDF; 1.06MB] (external link)  also provide information about child protection policies.

Safety checking

All children’s workers must be safety checked according to the standards set out in the Children's Act 2014 and safety checking regulations. This includes a workforce restriction – anyone convicted of a specified offence cannot be employed or engaged as a core children’s worker, unless they have an exemption.

The safety checking licensing criteria and guidance provide detailed information on how to meet these requirements:

The guidelines Safer recruitment, Safer children [PDF; 1.06MB] (external link)  provide information about choosing safe people to work with children.

The publication Children’s worker safety checking under the Vulnerable Children Act 2014 [PDF; 1.32MB] [PDF, 1.2 MB] provides advice for interpreting and applying the safety checking regulations.

The following resources will help you meet your safety checking requirements:

Screening service for early learning service owner operators who are children’s workers

A screening service is available to undertake safety checks for specified groups of children’s workers.

This service has been established to provide third party safety checks for children’s workers in the health, education and social development sectors who are self-employed or sole-practitioners.

In the education sector, this screening service has been approved for early learning service owner operators.

All children’s workers need to be safety checked. If you are an early learning service owner operator, and you also work in that early learning service as a children’s worker, then you need to arrange to be safety checked. You may choose to use this approved screening service to undertake that safety check for you, but you are not obliged to do so.

There is a cost to applicants for the service.

To find out more about the service, including costs, go to the screening service provider’s website, CV Check (external link) .

Further information

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