Obligations of early childhood education and care providers
Understand your obligations including how to operate a service, improve your quality rating and what to report.
As a provider of an early childhood education and care service, it's important to understand your obligations.
The obligations of service providers are outlined in the Education and Care Services National Law and Regulations.
Apply to become an approved provider or open a new service.
Child protection and safety
You must report any suspected child abuse or neglect to the relevant agency below.
Where the suspected abuse or neglect has happened at an education and care service or involves a staff member at the service, the provider must also notify Children’s Education and Care Assurance (CECA).
All staff working in education and care should complete the free training on how to respond to child abuse and neglect.
The Children and Young People Act 2008 includes a legal obligation that people working in education and care services are mandatory reporters. This means they must report any suspected child abuse or neglect.
Mandated reporters must report if they believe a child they work with has experienced or is experiencing:
- sexual abuse
- non-accidental physical injury.
As a mandated reporter, you must report allegations of sexual and physical abuse to Child and Youth Protection Services.
If you believe child sexual abuse has already been committed, you must report it to the police.
Find out how to report child abuse and neglect.
The Reportable Conduct Scheme aims to improve child protection within organisations in the ACT.
Reportable conduct covers allegations or convictions of child abuse or misconduct towards children.
You must report allegations of reportable conduct by an employee or volunteer.
This includes:
- ill-treatment of a child (such as emotional abuse or use of force)
- neglect
- psychological harm
- misconduct of a sexual nature
- sexual or physical offences and convictions where a child is a victim or is present
- inappropriate discipline or not protecting children from harm.
Organisations must have policies and procedures to prevent and respond to child abuse.
Organisations can use the ACT Ombudsman’s reportable conduct resource kit to help meet their obligations.
If you suspect criminal conduct, you must also report it to ACT Policing.
Find out more about the Reportable Conduct Scheme on the ACT Ombudsman’s website.
The Senior Practitioner Act 2018 regulates the use of restrictive practices by a range of entities, including approved providers.
The Senior Practitioner works with the regulated communities to drive cultural change across all sectors where restrictive practices may be an issue.
The legislation protects the rights of individuals in settings including children in education and care services.
The Working with Vulnerable People (background Checking) Act 2011 requires all people working and volunteering in education and care services to:
- have a background check
- be registered to work with vulnerable people.
Providers and educators must keep up to date records of Working with Vulnerable People (WWVP) Registration cards. This includes the obligation for people to always carry their WWVP card when educating and caring for children in education and care settings.
Find out more about working with vulnerable people obligations.
Who regulates providers
In the ACT, Children’s Education and Care Assurance (CECA) is the Regulatory Authority for early childhood education and care services.
CECA monitor compliance with the National Law and Regulations. They also:
- grant provider and service approvals
- assess and rate services against the National Quality Standard
- investigate serious incidents and complaints
- educate and inform the education and care sector on the National Quality Framework
- support early childhood education and care services across the ACT.
Find out more about the role of CECA.
The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) works nationally to guide the implementation and administration of the National Quality Framework.
How to operate a service
The National Law and Regulations outline:
- the operating requirements for your service type
- staffing and qualifications
- how services are assessed and rated.
You can check your obligations and compliance using our self-assessment of compliance tool [DOCX 437 KB].
Leadership and governance
Quality governance and leadership of ECEC services is crucial to delivering quality outcomes for children.
ECEC providers and service leaders need to understand their responsibilities and put effective leadership strategies and management systems in place.
The National Quality Framework Handbook is for ACT providers, persons with management and control and service leaders. It provides guidance on their roles, responsibilities and obligations under the National Quality Framework.
Key roles in the service
The National Law and Regulations outline the legal obligations of:
- approved providers
- nominated supervisors
- educators.
The National Law and Regulations requires approved providers to employ a qualified and experienced:
- nominated supervisor (or 'service leader')
- person in day-to-day charge
- educational leader
- family day care coordinator
- early childhood teachers (for services caring for preschool age children and below).
Approved provider
An approved provider is responsible for the management and operation of the service. This includes the safety, health, wellbeing and educational needs of enrolled children.
Providers must:
- show effective leadership, governance and management
- meet their legal obligations
- employ qualified and experienced staff.
Nominated supervisor
The nominated supervisor must:
- be over 18 years old
- have experience providing education and care to children
- be able to supervise and manage an education and care service.
The nominated supervisor is in day-to-day charge of the service, or they can designate this to a responsible person in their absence.
They must give their consent in writing. You can download the nominated supervisor consent form from the ACECQA website.
You can also download the information sheet for nominated supervisors listed under 'Resources'.
Person in day-to-day charge
The approved provider or a nominated supervisor may place a person in day-to-day charge of a service.
A person in day-to-day charge is the point of contact for parents and staff.
The person in day-to-day charge must:
- be over 18 years old
- have experience providing education and care to children
- be able to supervise and manage an education and care service.
The person must give written consent to being a person in day-to-day charge.
Educational leader
Educational leaders support the development and implementation of educational programs across the service.
Learn more about educational leadership on the ACECQA website.
Find out about best practice for early childhood educators.
Family day care coordinator (family day care services only)
A family day care coordinator must have an approved diploma level education and care qualification or higher. Their role is to monitor and support their educators.
In the first 12 months, there must be one full time coordinator for every 15 educators.
After the end of 12 months, this changes to one coordinator for every 25 educators.
Checking qualifications
The National Quality Framework sets out the qualifications needed to work in education and care services.
Educators must have either:
- an approved certificate III or diploma level qualification
- be working towards an approved certificate III or diploma level qualification.
Services caring for pre-school age and younger children are also required to employ qualified early childhood teachers.
Providers must check if staff are qualified to work in an education and care service.
They can also check if qualifications are genuine on the Australian Skills Quality Authority website.
Improve your quality rating
CECA assesses and rates services in the ACT against the 7 quality areas of the National Quality Standard.
You can use ACECQA's self-assessment tool to:
- self-assess your service against the National Quality Standard and National Law and Regulations
- develop or review your quality improvement plan.
Find out more about the assessment and rating process.
Follow the ACT assessment and rating guidance:
- Documentation requirements for school age children [PDF 265 KB]
- Requirements for exceeding rating for Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice [PDF 288 KB]
Develop and review your quality improvement plan
The approved provider must have a quality improvement plan in place for each service.
The aim of the plan is to help providers:
- self-assess their performance in delivering quality education and care
- plan future improvements.
It also helps regulatory authorities with assessing the quality of the service.
The plan must be:
- prepared within 3 months of the service approval
- provided to CECA on request
- updated at least once a year
- available to families enrolling their child into the service
- available at the principal office for family day care services.
Go to the ACECQA website for guidance on developing a quality improvement plan.
Reporting obligations
You must notify CECA about:
- serious incidents
- complaints about non-compliance with the law
- any risks to the health, safety or wellbeing of children
- any incident or allegation of physical or sexual abuse.
You must tell CECA within 24 hours of becoming aware of:
- a serious incident
- a complaint that a serious incident happened
- a complaint that the National Law has been breached.
A breach of the National Law includes allegations of physical or sexual abuse. This may be from child disclosures and parental information.
There are other things you need to let us know about within 7 days, such as changes to the approved provider or service.
Find out about notification types and timeframes on the ACECQA website.
Find out the reporting requirements about children.
How to report
You can use ACECQA's national decision tree to help decide:
- whether you need to notify
- the timeframes you have to notify.
You report to CECA using the National Quality Agenda IT system portal on the ACECQA website.
A serious incident is defined as any of the following:
- death of a child while at the service or following an incident at the service
- serious injury, trauma or illness which requires urgent medical attention from a registered medical practitioner or attendance at a hospital
- any emergency where emergency services attended
- a child appears to be missing or cannot be accounted for at the service
- a child appears to have been taken or removed from the service without authorisation
- a child is mistakenly locked in or locked out of the service premises.
When reporting a serious incident, include the following information:
- full names of the people involved or who witnessed the incident (staff, parents and children)
- description of what happened
- a timeline of events including leading up to the incident
- if medical attention was obtained
- whether notifications were made to other government agencies
- any medical reports or photos of an injury or relevant location
- prevention measures in place
- an incident, injury or illness report.
The incident, injury or illness report should include:
- child's name and age
- time and date of incident/injury/illness
- description of injury/illness
- details of any action taken, including first aid provided
- time and date of notification
- details of witnesses.
The following complaints must be reported:
- a complaint that a serious incident has happened
- a complaint that the National Law has been breached.
Complaints that the National Law has been breached include things like:
- complaints about supervision or staffing
- complaints about hygiene
- allegations of physical or sexual abuse
- complaints about educator interactions with children.
Include the following information:
- full names of the people involved (staff, parents and children)
- contact details of the person making the complaint
- a description of the complaint
- prevention measures in place
- any emails, witness accounts or relevant records.
Contact us
Email
CECA@act.gov.au