Compliance focus – child safe environments

Learn about new legislation introduced to strengthen child safe environments in early childhood education and care in NSW.

11 February 2026

The content of this article was updated on 24 April 2026.

The Children (Education and Care Services National Law Application) Amendment Act 2025 has legislated more than 30 reforms amending how the National Law and Regulations apply in NSW to strengthen the safety and wellbeing of children in ECEC.

Among these are new requirements under Regulation 168 of the Education and Care Services National Regulations (NSW) which make it mandatory for approved providers to outline clear child-safe procedures as part of their child safe environment policies and procedures.

These requirements commenced 24 April 2026 and must be implemented to comply.

Key requirements

New amendments to Regulation 168(2)(h) of the Education and Care Services National Regulations embed explicit expectations for services to create and maintain a culture of child safety and wellbeing.

Services need to have policies and procedures that provide for:

(i) A commitment to ensuring a particular child’s safety, welfare and wellbeing are paramount in all decisions and actions.

(ii) Ensuring all staff complete child protection training as required by the Education and Care Services National Law, with up-to-date records of training maintained.

(iii) Maintaining a register of child protection concerns.

(iv) Ensuring that staff know how to report any concerns and having the NSW Early Learning Commission’s Reporting Guide in a place accessible by all staff.

(v) Conducting child protection risk assessments.

(vi) Maintaining accurate daily attendance records, ensuring children are accounted for at all times.

These provisions align with the Child Safe Standards and reflect a legislative commitment to ensuring that the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children are paramount in every action and decision made within an education and care service.

Approved providers must ensure their service’s policies and procedures clearly outline how a child safe environment will be upheld in daily operations and decision-making processes.

Meeting your requirements

Services should review and update their child safe environment policies and procedures to ensure they are in line with new requirements for regulation 168 (2)(h). Policies should reflect current service procedures and practices, and all staff should understand and be able to put them into action effectively.

Things to consider in your review include:

(i) A child’s safety, welfare and wellbeing are paramount

Services must demonstrate a clear commitment that, in any action or decision concerning an individual child, the child’s safety, welfare and wellbeing are the paramount considerations. This principle should be evident in all aspects of service delivery, including enrolment, supervision, risk assessment, interactions with children and responses to incidents or concerns.

(ii) Child protection training requirements

Policies must include procedures to ensure that required staff meet the child protection training requirements under the Education and Care Services National Law, including those set out in section 162A. This should include maintaining up-to-date records of staff training completion and schedules for ongoing professional learning in child protection and child-safe practices. Further information on child protection training requirements can be found on Child protection and child safety training requirements.

(iii) Register for child protection concerns

Each service must establish and maintain a register to record child protection concerns. This register is intended to support consistent documentation, monitoring, and appropriate follow-up of matters relating to the safety and wellbeing of children. The register should also support the identification and management of trends or patterns of behaviour.

The register should include, at a minimum, all child safety and child protection reports made to:

NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG)

NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ)

NSW Early Learning Commission

NSW Police

However, to strengthen child safety practices across National Quality Standard 2.2 - Safety, and support timely responses and effective pattern-spotting or trend monitoring, services are encouraged to also record any concerns about a child that may not meet the threshold for mandatory reporting but are relevant to ongoing risk assessment (e.g. changes in behaviour, unexplained injuries, concerning observations).

The service’s child safe environments policy and procedures should clearly outline responsibilities for maintaining, storing and reviewing the register to ensure confidentiality and accountability (and considering protected disclosure provisions) and that any trends or patterns of behaviour evident in the register are identified and addressed.

The NSW Early Learning Commission has developed a template register which services can download and use for this purpose.

(iv) Reporting decision tree

Services should ensure staff are familiar with and can easily access the reporting decision tree (currently known as the NSW Early Learning Commission’s Reporting Guide). Services should also include in policy and procedures any internal service-specific reporting and recording requirements.

Policies and procedures should outline the steps to be taken when a child safety concern arises, including what to report, when to report, and to whom. They should clearly identify key roles and responsibilities within the service and provide accessible contact details for reporting child safety concerns both internally and to relevant external authorities. All information must accurately reflect the service’s own policies, procedures, and communication pathways to ensure consistency between documentation and practice.

The reporting decision tree and any internal service-specific reporting requirements should be included in induction and ongoing training so staff can respond promptly and appropriately to child safety matters. Services must also review all policies and procedures regularly to ensure the information remains current, accurate, and practical to use.

Further information on reporting requirements can be found on the Reporting incidents and concerns webpage.

(v) Child protection risk assessments

Policies must include procedures for undertaking regular and service specific child protection risk assessments. These assessments should identify potential risks to children’s safety, welfare and wellbeing and outline control measures to mitigate those risks across physical environments, routines, excursions, interactions and online or communication practices.

(vi) Attendance records and daily accountability

Services must ensure robust daily practices for maintaining accurate attendance records under Regulation 158 (and Regulation 159 for Family Day Care). This includes monitoring sign-in and sign-out procedures and implementing systems to confirm that all children are accounted for throughout the day. Policies should describe how staff will verify children’s whereabouts during transitions, routines, and emergency situations.

Further information and resources

NSW Early Learning Commission

Child Safety in early childhood education and care

Implementing the Child Safe Standards resources developed by the OCG for the NSW ECEC sector, including:

Child Safe Early Childhood Education and Care e-learning – Module 2: Risk management in a child safe service and Module 6: Child safe leadership and policy creation