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Emergency management in early childhood services

An emergency may adversely affect the safety or health of any occupants or visitors at the service or family day care residence. Threats and hazards can come from inside or outside the service.

On this page

Overview

An emergency is an incident, situation or event that:

Threats and hazards can come from both inside the service or outside the service:

This information relates to both centre-based and family day care services, including Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) services, occasional care and limited hours service. For readability, we use the term ‘service’. It includes family day care residences and venues.

Emergencies can be sudden, and expose children, staff and visitors to health and safety risks.

Services need to plan and prepare so they can respond quickly and effectively to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone at the service.

Read about Managing bushfire and grassfire risks in early childhood services(opens in a new window).

Emergency and evacuation requirements - all early childhood services

All early childhood services must have emergency and evacuation policies and procedures.

The regulations* specify that the approved provider must:

Services on the Bushfire At-Risk Register (BARR)(opens in a new window) and on Category 4(opens in a new window) have extra requirements.

Your service’s emergency and evacuation policy and procedures must be available at services on request. In family day care (FDC) services, they must be always available at family day care residences or venues.

*National Regulations: regulations 97, 168 - 172 (NQF services) and to Children’s Services Regulations: 66, 112-115 (Children’s Services Act (CS Act)).

Read the ACECQA Emergency and evacuation policy and procedure guidelines(opens in a new window).

Emergency management planning

We’ve developed a sample template Emergency Management Plan (EMP) (DOCX, 348KB)(opens in a new window) to guide and document your emergency management arrangements.

You can use these documents as a framework to help:

The EMP template brings all the information together into one document about:

For example:

You do not have to use the EMP template. If you do, make sure you adapt it to your service, its operations and practices. This includes the procedures, staff emergency roles and other information.

People with additional needs

If a member of staff or child has additional needs, you may need to create a separate personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for them.

Refer to the Department of Education’s sample Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP):

Services co-located on a school site

When developing emergency plans, services that are co-located on a school site:

Update your contact details

When reviewing your EMP, remember to update key sections, including contact details. You should also update your service contact details with the department.

NQF services can update their details on the NQA ITS portal(opens in a new window).

Limited hours and occasional care services must:

Risk assessment

A risk assessment is essential. It should be the first step in your emergency management planning process. The risk assessment feeds into all the other elements of your emergency plan because it helps you to:

Review your risk assessment:

To help guide your risk assessment, refer to the Department of Education’s sample template (DOCX, 33KB)(opens in a new window).

Emergency procedures

For every risk you identified in the risk assessment, you will need to have a corresponding emergency procedure.

Your procedures should provide sufficient detail to make sure all tasks are done. For example:

Remember to review your procedures after every emergency incident and rehearsal.

All staff must have a good knowledge of the service’s emergency procedures.

Parents or carers should also be familiar with your arrangements in case of an emergency.

Where possible, involve or consider information made available by your local emergency services and Council or Shire - they may be able to provide expert advice about your procedures.

FDC services

Approved providers must make sure that the service or each FDC educator has access to the following so they can communicate with parents and emergency services:

Resources

The Department of Education has several resources that may assist you:

Emergency evacuation diagram or floor plan

Your emergency evacuation diagram (floor plan) must have both:

When deciding on your emergency evacuation assembly points:

Emergency evacuation diagrams must be clearly displayed near each exit of the service premises, FDC residence or venue.

The following Department of Education resources may assist you in developing an emergency and evacuation floor plan:

Rehearse your emergency and evacuation procedures every 3 months

Rehearsing your emergency evacuations (i.e. drills) will help you identify potential problems in the evacuation routes or procedures.

Use real scenarios and remember to appoint an observer to record how the rehearsal went.

All services, and each FDC educator, must rehearse their emergency and evacuation plan

It’s important that after each drill, you:

Resources

The following Department of Education resources may be useful:

Resources and guidance

Asthma, allergies, and bites and stings

Contact details

Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (VECRA)

VECRA is the Regulatory Authority in Victoria.

For enquiries contact:

To contact your VECRA regional office, refer to Which early childhood services are regulated(opens in a new window).

Department of Education region emergency management contact numbers

Updated 27 March 2026

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