Suitable staff and volunteers

Guidance on Child Safe Standard 6: People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.

Schools

To comply with Standard 6, you need to:

develop robust procedures to ensure only suitable people work with children
supervise staff and volunteers to ensure they prioritise the safety of children
support staff and volunteers to understand their responsibilities.

Suitable staff and volunteers

This standard focuses on ensuring that people who work with children and young people are suitable and supported to act in a child safe way. Schools should make child safety and wellbeing a key consideration when recruiting staff and volunteers.

As part of this standard, schools must:

develop robust procedures to ensure only suitable people work with children
supervise staff and volunteers to ensure they prioritise the safety of children
support staff and volunteers to understand their responsibilities.

Benefits of recruiting suitable staff and volunteers

Selecting suitable people to work with children is vital to protecting children from harm.

Good recruitment practices:

create a safer workplace
reduce the opportunity for harm to occur
prevent, screen out or deter people who are unsuitable to work or volunteer with children
recruit staff who uphold the school values.

Rigorous selection processes and appropriate training and supervision helps keep staff and students safe. This standard helps schools meet child safety and occupational health and safety legal requirements.

Actions schools must take

To comply with this standard, at minimum, schools must:

make sure job advertisements have clear statements about:

the job’s requirements, duties and responsibilities regarding child safety and wellbeing
the job occupant’s essential or relevant qualifications, experience and attributes in relation to child safety and wellbeing.

advise job applicants about the child safety practices of the school, including the Code of Conduct
make volunteers aware of the school’s Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Child Safety Code of Conduct
screen school staff applicants:

sight, verify and record a Working with Children clearance if they person is required to have one or any equivalent background checks such as Victorian Institute of Teaching registration
collect and record proof of identify, qualifications, history of working with children and references

screen volunteers:

sight, verify and record a Working with Children clearance if they person is required to have one of any equivalent background check
consider the child safety risks relevant to the volunteer’s role and, if reasonable and appropriate collect and record proof of identify, qualifications, history of working with children and references

provide an induction to staff, volunteers and contractors engaged in child-related work, regarding child safety and wellbeing that is appropriate to the nature of the role
ensure that induction addresses the school’s:

the Child Safety Code of Conduct
the Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
procedures for managing complaints and concerns related to child abuse

make sure staff, governing body members, and volunteers engaged in child-connected work, are aware of their responsibilities for:

children and students
information sharing and reporting obligations
recordkeeping obligations

provide supervision and people management of staff and volunteers that focuses on child safety and wellbeing.

Relevant standards

Ministerial Order 1359 - Implementing the Child Safe Standards – Managing the Risk of Child Abuse in Schools and School Boarding Premises (PDF, 363KB).
Child Safe Standard 6 – People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.

Refer to Standard 2 and Standard 7 for more information about recordkeeping, information sharing and reporting obligations.
Standard 8 provides more information about child safe training and support for staff and volunteers.

Implement Standard 6

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Think about actions your school might take

There are many actions schools may use to address this standard. To get started, review the example actions.

Develop policies

Government schools should follow recruitment policies established by the department.

Schools can use these templates to develop the policies required for this standard:

All schools

Child Safety Wellbeing Policy guidance and template (DOCX, 448KB)

Government schools

Recruitment in Schools Policy
Reportable Conduct
Suitability for Employment Checks
Visitors in Schools
Visitors Policy template (login required)
Volunteers in Schools
Volunteers Policy template (login required)
Working with Children and Other Suitability Checks for School Volunteers and Visitors Child safe recruitment practices should be outlined in the school’s Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy. Decisions about the employment of staff or volunteers should prioritise child safety.

Families, children and young people should be informed about how the school prioritises child safety in recruitment, induction and ongoing supervision of staff.

Take all the necessary actions

Use this checklist to make sure your school is doing everything required to comply with this standard:

Government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 110KB)
Non-government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 384KB) Use these presentations to train your school governing authority, staff and volunteers:
School council training- Child Safe Standards (PPTX, 741KB)
School staff training- Child Safe Standards (PPTX, 1MB)
Volunteer training - Child Safe Standards (PPTX, 2.3MB).

Review child safety policies

Schools must review their child safety and wellbeing policies:

after any significant child safety incident
at least once every 2 years.

Examples of actions to engage suitable staff and volunteers

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Robust recruitment and screening

Consider including students in the recruitment process to provide an authentic opportunity for them to have a say about decisions that impact them.

Advertising

Ensure recruitment advertisements for staff in child connected work contain:

the job’s requirements, including expected knowledge of child development appropriate to the role
an outline of duties and responsibilities regarding child safety and wellbeing
essential or relevant qualifications, experience and attributes in relation to child safety and wellbeing.

Provide all job applicants with the school’s Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Child Safety Code of Conduct and links to child safety resources.

Screening

Include selection criteria relevant to the role, such as:

experience working with children, or particular groups of children, including children with a disability or Aboriginal children
engaging with families
child safety experience
cultural safety in their work.

Screen all staff, volunteers, leaders and school governing board members for their suitability during recruitment.

Interviews

Think carefully about who will be on the interview panel. Ensure panel members have the right skills, experience and information to perform their role.
Develop questions about child safety for job interviews.
Seek referees for both staff and volunteers as appropriate, including their last employer, and overseas referees if they’ve worked overseas.
Ask referees about the person’s character and experience in working directly with children and young people.

Supervision and people management focused on child safety and wellbeing

Conduct a risk assessment (refer to Standard 9) to determine what level of ongoing supervision and management is necessary. Consider the physical layout of your school, any concerns that may have been raised previously and other relevant risk factors.
School leaders regularly walk-around classrooms and the school yard.
Set out standards for child safety performance in staff contracts and state how performance will be assessed. Include child safety and wellbeing goals in staff professional development plans.
Include child safety and wellbeing as a regular agenda item for staff meetings at all levels. These items could focus on elements of the school’s child safety framework, such as:

identifying grooming and other behaviour that could cause harm to a student. Government schools can use the staff conduct case study (login required) to help staff identify potential grooming behaviours
understanding what types of behaviour should be reported to school leaders
how to respond to an incident, disclosure or suspicions of child abuse
identifying risks in the school’s physical and online environment and who to report them to.

Communicate regularly with staff and volunteers about the child safety and wellbeing. This includes promoting the school’s Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Code of Conduct in newsletters and staff updates.
Conduct formal and informal observations of staff working with children. Provide feedback to staff on how to support student’s safety and wellbeing through regular check-ins or as appropriate.
Assign a child safety champion or allocate a staff member responsibility to support the school’s implementation of a particular Standard (such as Child Safe Standard 1).
Ensure all school leaders know how to manage a staff member whose behaviour raises child safety concerns. This includes:

when to escalate concerns
what records of conversations to keep
how to follow up and monitor staff behaviour after immediate concerns have been addressed.

Take early action to provide feedback to staff and correct any concerning or unsafe conduct to prevent harm before it occurs.
Ensure systems are in place for recording information on staff conduct and any concerns raised.
Ensure staff and volunteers who are nominated to be Child Link Users meet the pre-requisites to be a Child Link User. Ensure that they are complying with the Child Link Secretary’s Guidelines, the Terms of Use of Child Link and any associated user practice guidance.
Notify the Department of Education when the User should have their access investigated for a restriction. Email the department at ChildLink@education.vic.gov.au.

Training and support to uphold child safety

Refer to Standard 8 for further guidance on building child safety knowledge, skills and awareness.
Nominate a child safety champion and support them to facilitate the induction and training programs for staff and volunteers.
Provide induction that covers:

the Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
the Child Safety Code of Conduct
how to contribute to identifying, removing or reducing risks
recordkeeping and information sharing requirements
school values and philosophy
procedures for managing complaints
privacy and reporting protocols.

Allocate a mentor to new staff for the first 12 months to provide guidance on teaching practices and professional conduct
Train all staff and volunteers as appropriate to their roles, on topics such as:

child safety (including family violence)
mandatory reporting
responding to student sexual offending
human rights and the rights of children
diversity and inclusion
harassment and bullying
cultural safety
privacy and information sharing.

Cover important topics in your child safety training, including:

risk factors and signs of harm, including intentional and unintentional harm, physical or emotional harm, bullying or cyberbullying, abuse and neglect
how to identify and respond to child safety risks, especially for vulnerable students
how to facilitate child-friendly ways for students to express their views, participate in decision making and raise concerns
how to engage with families to support student’s safety and wellbeing
how to appropriately handle or share sensitive information relating to a child’s wellbeing health or safety.

Deliver regular child safety briefings for all staff, for example through staff meetings, newsletters, year level briefings.
For larger schools, consider implementing sub-school teams, with team leaders or child safety champions to observe school staff and discuss child safety.
Inform staff and volunteers, as appropriate, of their responsibilities under the information sharing and family violence reforms.

Make child safety a key part of recruitment processes

Provide role descriptions for staff and volunteers to clearly outline their duties and responsibilities regarding supervision, child safety and wellbeing, and diversity and inclusion. This may involve revising existing role descriptions.
Make sure all staff, particularly those with mandatory reporting responsibilities, are aware of the up-to-date processes for making a report.
Provide child safety champion/s with information to support their function relating to child safety, family violence and information sharing.
Put a process in place to check staff and volunteers’ working with children clearance status or equivalent background check on at least an annual basis.
Include child safety in ongoing staff support, supervision and performance management processes.
Align complaints processes with best practice, including the PROTECT Four Critical Actions and Reportable Conduct requirements.
Declare and manage any potential conflicts of interest, such as family or business relationships or close friendships.
Provide clear avenues for staff to report concerns.
Involve staff in after-action reviews when a child safety incident has occurred.

Resources

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Government schools

Non-government schools

Training resources

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Department resources

External resources

Support

For further help to meet Child Safe Standard 6 and Ministerial Order 1359, please contact child.safe.schools@education.vic.gov.au.

Possible next steps

Use this checklist to make sure your school is doing everything required to comply with this standard:

Government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 110KB)
Non-government schools: Child Safety Action List (DOCX, 384KB)

Read more about implementing all the Child Safe Standards in schools.

Education & training

Updated 26 March 2026

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Suitable staff and volunteers

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Suitable staff and volunteers

Benefits of recruiting suitable staff and volunteers

Actions schools must take

Relevant standards

Implement Standard 6

All schools

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