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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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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.
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Discover Frequently Asked Questions about Children and Young People
The National Quality Framework is the system for regulating early childhood education and care services and outside school hours care across Australia. It provides a national approach to regulation, assessment, and quality improvement. The NQF includes the National Quality Standard (NQS), which sets expectations for quality across seven Quality Areas including children’s health and safety, governance and leadership, and relationships with children.
From 1 September 2025, significant child safety reforms commenced under the NQF, including:
- Requirements for clear policies on safe use of digital technologies and online environments, including taking, storing, and destroying images of children
- Reduced reporting timeframes for allegations or incidents of physical or sexual abuse (from 7 days to 24 hours)
- Ban on vaping substances and devices in early learning services
- From 1 January 2026, refinements to the NQS to explicitly embed child safety into Quality Areas 2 (Children’s Health and Safety) and 7 (Governance and Leadership)
These changes strengthen safeguards and ensure child safety is a lived practice, not just policy on paper.
Safeguarding is the active steps an organisation takes to protect children from harm and ensure their wellbeing and safety. Early childhood services must:
- Comply with Child Safe Standards in their state or territory
- Have comprehensive child safety policies and procedures
- Train educators and staff on recognising and responding to abuse
- Implement child-focused complaints handling processes
- Report allegations of abuse under mandatory reporting and Reportable Conduct Scheme obligations
- Create physical and online environments that promote safety and minimise opportunities for harm
- Embed child safety into governance, leadership, and organisational culture
In Victoria, early childhood services listed in Schedule 1 of the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 (Vic) are subject to the Reportable Conduct Scheme. This includes kindergartens, day care centres, and preschools. Similar schemes operate in New South Wales, Western Australia, Queensland (phased implementation), and Tasmania.
The Reportable Conduct Scheme requires organisations to report allegations of reportable conduct to the relevant regulator (in Victoria, the Commission for Children and Young People) and conduct investigations into these allegations. Reportable conduct includes sexual offences, sexual misconduct, physical violence, behaviour causing significant emotional or psychological harm, and significant neglect
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