Managing risks in your service

The Education and Care Services National Law requires you to ‘ensure that every reasonable precaution is taken to protect children… from harm and from any hazard likely to cause injury’ (Section 167).

In a service, there are so many hazards that can be a risk to the health and safety of both the children and educators.

How does a service control these hazards?

By having a strong risk management process in place - this is the key to ensuring a service can minimise the risk of injury, and also ensuring that all staff are aware of this process - not just the Director.

Safety is everyone's responsibility, and the more people involved, the better chance of having a successful risk management process. PLUS, consultation in part of the process and is a must for Workplace Health and Safety (Work Health and Safety Act s47 Duty to consult workers).

ACECQA have a great resource available that is Childcare specific -

https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/QA2_Risk_Assessment_Resource.pdf