As a child-related employee or volunteer you are in a unique position to raise issues, provide feedback and drive improvement to keep children and young people safe in organisations.
Concern about an individual child
The Office of the Children's Guardian does not deal directly with complaints or concerns about risk of harm to individual children.
To report suspected child abuse or neglect contact the Child Protection Helpline on 132 111 (TTY 1800 212 936).
Raising a concern about a service for children
The Child Safe Scheme was launched on 1 February 2022 and applies to most organisations that provide services to children and young people.
The Scheme is based on 10 standards that cover aspects of providing safe, secure environments for children to grow and thrive.
A founding principle of the Scheme is that organisations work to continually improve their child safe culture. Raising concerns and providing feedback should be welcomed.
If you have concerns about a service being provided to children and young people, the first thing to do is raise it with that organisation. The organisation should have a policy on how they handle allegations and concerns.
If, after speaking with the organisation, you still have concerns, then you can report them to us. Where your concern comes under the Child Safe Scheme we will take a capability building approach with the organisation.
Report a concern about the Working with Children Check
If you are concerned that an individual or an organisation is not meeting their obligations of the Working with Children Check, you can report your concern to the Office of the Children's Guardian.
Use the form below to raise concerns such as:
- A person is working in child-related work without a Working with Children Check
- A person is barred and is continuing to work in child-related work
- An organisation is not removing barred or interim barred workers from child-related work
- An organisation is not ensuring child-related workers have a Working with Children Check.
Report a concern about employment of a child
You can report any unauthorised employment of a child or register a concern you have about a child working in the entertainment or modelling industries with us.
Reporting can be anonymous, however providing contact details will help us if we need further information. Your details will be kept confidential.
You can also contact the children's employment team by phone on (02) 8219 3797, or email kidsemployment@ocg.nsw.gov.au.
If you have reason to believe a child is at risk of harm please report this to us.
Risks to children we wish to mitigate include:
- Sexual abuse
- Physical harm
- Psychological harm
- Exposure to adult themes or concepts
- Exploitation through excessive work hours
- Educational neglect
- Employment where the employer does not hold a current employers authority
Multilingual information posters
Display these posters in your organisation so everyone knows how they can respond to a concern.
