Keeping children safe is a shared responsibility. Victoria is strengthening the Working with Children Check (WWCC) to provide greater safeguards for children and help organisations make safer decisions about the people they engage to work or volunteer with children.
Working with Children Connect is now available via the Service Victoria website. The new online service will enable organisations to meet the new legal requirement to notify the Social Services Regulator (SSR) about workers and volunteers they engage to work with children. It will also give the SSR more accurate and up-to-date information about where people with a WWC Clearance are working and will help the SSR identify who needs to be informed if a worker’s WWC Clearance status changes.
To comply with WWC Connect requirements, your organisation should:
1. Check – use the WWC status checker to verify your workers’ WWC Clearance.
2. Connect – when ready to formally engage, connect them to your organisation using WWC Connect.
3. Record – keep appropriate records to show you have completed the required checks and connection.
4. Maintain – keep your WWC Connect records up to date as workers and volunteers join, leave or their details change.
Visit WWC Connect to get started
While it’s now a legal responsibility for organisations and sole traders to connect a person engaged to do child-related work from 19 October via Working with Children Connect, you also are strongly encouraged to connect existing workers and volunteers. This will provide a more complete view of your child-related workforce. It will help ensure you receive notifications if someone’s WWC Clearance status changes.
Find out more about WWC Connect
WWC Child Safety Training
This training is mandatory for all:
- new WWC Check applicants
- people renewing their WWC Clearance
- people changing from a volunteer WWC Clearance to employee WWC Clearance.
Organisations should be aware of the legal requirement so they can support affected workers and volunteers. They must complete the training before their WWC Check application can be finalised. The training will help build a consistent understanding of child safety responsibilities across Victoria’s child-related workforce. The training complements and does not replace organisations’ existing child safety responsibilities, induction, supervision and training.
Find out more about the mandatory WWC Child Safety Training
Please visit Changes to the Working with Children Check on the SSR website for further information, a new informational video, frequently asked questions and a fact sheet. Please note the frequently asked questions will continue to be updated to include further guidance on how to use WWC Connect and what to expect from the mandatory child safety training.
Find out more about changes to the Working with Children Check
If you have any questions, you can call 1300 310 778 or email contact@ssr.vic.gov.au.