The Victorian Government will strengthen its Working with Children Check laws, but the first change will not come into effect until August. Source: ABC News.
Victoria Police yesterday announced a childcare worker in Melbourne’s south-west had been charged with more than 70 offences, including sexual assault and producing child abuse material, related to eight alleged victims.
Police said the accused, who had worked for about 20 childcare centres over about eight years, held a valid Working with Children Check (WWCC).
The ABC understands the Department of Government Services (DGS) recently completed an “initial review” of Victoria’s Working with Children scheme.
The review was ordered after the ABC revealed people under investigation for serious offences could still hold one of the permits.
A WWCC is a background check conducted by the Government that screens people for criminal history and professional conduct findings.
Currently in Victoria, only criminal charges or a regulatory finding can trigger a check being revoked.
The Government said that from August, screening regulations would change so DGS could “take into account prohibition notices issued from the Department of Education when determining or revoking a person’s clearance to work with children”.
“It’s clear to us that this system needs to be strengthened,” Government Services Minister Natalie Hutchins told the ABC last month, after the ABC’s extensive coverage of the issue.
It has been 10 years since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended Australia’s eight separate state and territory working-with-children systems be both standardised and nationalised.
In a rare case of a former royal commissioner speaking publicly, Robert Fitzgerald told the ABC it was “shameful” this work had still not been done.
“There doesn’t need to be any more reviews or any more inquiries, or any more royal commissions,” he said.
“The evidence was overwhelming 10 years ago and it’s even more so today,” he said.
“Working with children checks are in fact the very first thing you need to do to create child-safe institutions.
“The longer we delay in fixing the system … we continue to leave children at risk.”
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Victorian government to change state’s Working with Children Check system (ABC News)
