Organisations must also use the new working with children connect platform through Service Victoria to notify the Social Services Regulator about workers and volunteers engaged in child-related work.
The new system will give the Social Services Regulator a clearer picture of Victoria’s child-related workforce, enabling organisations to be alerted quickly if a worker’s working with children clearance status changes so they can take immediate action to protect children.
Anyone who engages a person with a suspended working with children clearance in child-related work is committing an offence.
Together, these reforms strengthen oversight of the child-related workforce, improve accountability and help ensure potential risks are identified and addressed sooner.
The changes are part of Victoria’s ongoing response to recommendations from the Rapid Child Safety Review and represent a significant strengthening of the state’s child safeguarding system.
Social Services Regulator’s Jonathan Kaplan said the new requirements strengthened the information available to organisations and reinforced their responsibility to ensure the people they engaged were eligible to work with children.
“All children deserve to feel and be safe wherever they are, and each of us has a critical role to play in supporting this,” he said.
For more information, visit vic.gov.au/changes-working-children-check
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