Childhood safety sector guidance

Since September 2025, a series of national law and regulation amendments have commenced to improve child safety in the early childhood sector.

These changes include:

• services must have policies and procedures relating to the safe use of digital technologies. The department’s policy for safe use of digital technology in early childhood education and care settings can be read on the Department of Education and Training website
• reduced timeframes for reporting incidents or allegations of physical or sexual abuse from 7 days to 24 hours
• service environments must be free from vaping.

Refinements to the National Quality Standard commenced to sharpen the focus on child safety and explicitly reference child safety within Quality Areas 2 and 7.

The Guide to the National Quality Framework has been amended to reflect these changes.

Two new guides have been released by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) to help services implement the changes:

• NQF Child Safe Culture Guide
• NQF Online Safety Guide.

For more information, read ACECQA’s information sheet.