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| Keeping kids safe:
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| mandatory reporting
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Early childhood education and care services have an obligation to provide a safe and nurturing environment for children and it is important to regularly review your practices to ensure you are meeting all your legal responsibilities in response to child protection standards and are meeting requirements with regard to education staff and families.
According to the NSW Department of Education some important points to consider include:
- Ensuring that your staff are aware of child protection laws and the obligations that they have under these laws
- Ensuring that the nominated supervisor and any certified supervisor placed in day to day charge of your service has an approved qualification in child protection
- Induction plans for new staff which include the services policies and procedures relating to child protection
- Communicating with parents on the responsibilities of staff and ways for parents to report any issues or incidents of concerns
- Regularly reviewing your child protection policies and procedures to ensure they are applied day to day
An integral component of the child protection laws as they apply to people working in the early childhood education and care sector is the mandatory reporting of situations where you think a child may be at risk of serious harm.
According to the definition supplied by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, mandatory reporting is a term used to describe the legislative requirement imposed on selected people to report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect to government authorities. Parliaments in all Australian states and territories have introduced mandatory reporting laws, however, they vary across the different states and territories.
The main differences concern who has to report, and what types of abuse and neglect have to be reported along with the 'state of mind' that activates the reporting duty and extent of harm.
For more information about mandatory reporting, what you should do if you suspect a child is at risk and the requirements between the different states and territories visit the Australian Government's Institute of Family Studies Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect Information Sheet.
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