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    Early Childhood & Day Care Centres

Safe space legal children and young people
Safeguarding Experts

Early Childhood & Day Care Centres

Early childhood education and care services play a vital role in the lives of young children and their families. Day care centres, kindergartens, preschools, family day care, and long day care services have a fundamental legal and moral obligation to ensure that children are safe, protected from harm, and supported in environments that promote their wellbeing and development.

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Children and young people are inherently vulnerable to abuse and harm.  Children have a right to feel safe and be safe in all environments.  Exposing children and young people to abuse and harm may cause long-term trauma and impact their growth and development.  Organisations must take active steps to comply with their duty of care to mitigate risk of harm.
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Reportable Conduct Scheme

Expert legal services to organisations working with children

Safe Space Legal provides exper legal services to organisations working with children and young people including: schools, local councils, sporting organisations, early learning centres and kindergartens, religious institutions and family services. 

Step by Step implementation

We work with clients to address their safeguarding needs, in a cost-effective and value focused manner. We ensure that we are always responsive, transparent and people-focused in our services, and support clients to implement our advice and recommendations.

Here when you need us

We are committed to providing you with professional guidance and support whenever you need it.
Child Safety in Early Childhood

Early childhood is a critical developmental period where children are particularly vulnerable and rely on educators and carers to ensure their safety and wellbeing. The early learning sector faces unique challenges in safeguarding children, from managing complex regulatory frameworks to responding to allegations of abuse or harm.

The National Quality Framework (NQF) provides the foundation for regulation and quality improvement across early childhood education and care services in Australia. The NQF includes the National Quality Standard (NQS), which organisations are assessed and rated against across seven Quality Areas. Recent reforms have strengthened child safety requirements within the NQF, with new regulations commencing from September 2025 that place explicit child safety obligations on early learning providers.

Organisations in the early childhood sector must also comply with state and territory Child Safe Standards, which are based on the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. These standards require organisations to embed child safety into leadership, governance, culture, policies, procedures, and day-to-day practice.

The early learning sector is also increasingly subject to Reportable Conduct Schemes across various Australian jurisdictions. These schemes require organisations to report and investigate allegations of abuse or misconduct involving workers, ensuring transparency and accountability in how organisations respond to child safety concerns.

Safe space legal children and young people

Our Services

Child Safety Policies

Developing child safety policies, procedures, codes of conduct, and complaints handling processes

Child Safety Investigations

Child safety investigations compliant with Reportable Conduct Schemes

Audits

Audits against Child Safety Standards with practical safeguarding advice

Child Safety Training

Tailored child safety training, including training compliant with the child safe standards and Ministerial Order 1359

Legal Advice

Expert safeguarding legal advice and representation for Early Childhood and Day Care Centres

Incident Management

Root cause analyses of critical child safety incidents and assistance with crisis management