Guidance for completing the web-based 7-day notification form

This field has a dropdown box that allows you to choose your relevant entity type – eg. ‘Affiliated health service’; ‘OOHC – Non-government statutory’; ‘OOHC – Voluntary’; ‘Religious body’ etc.

For some types of relevant entities, a further field titled ‘Industry Sub Group’ will appear when you select your industry group. You will need to choose the appropriate sub group category for your entity – eg. if you select ‘Non-government school’, you will need to select between ‘Catholic systemic’ or ‘Independent’.

Some relevant entities fall into more than category – for example, a relevant entity may be a religious body and a designated agency. In these cases, please choose the category that matches the subject person’s area of employment within your entity.

Please note: For Approved Education and Care Services operated by a local council, you will need to select ‘Public Authority – Local Council’. An additional dropdown box will then appear, and you will need to select from: ‘Approved education and care service – Childcare, Family Day Care or OOSH’.

This field captures the location at which the employee who is the subject of the allegation works – eg. the name of the school, individual approved education and care service, residential care service, district or region within a designated agency at which the subject employee was working when the allegations arose.

You also have the option to choose ‘Unknown’ if you are unsure of these details at the time you make your 7-day notification.

This field captures whether the employee who is the subject of the allegation is employed in other work in which they provide services to children, at the same time they are employed by your relevant entity. For some casual employees of your relevant entity, this may be common, and the Children’s Guardian Act requires you to provide this information if it is known to you.

Other work can include where the subject employee is engaged in voluntary work that is child‑related – eg. as a sporting coach or parent volunteer.

This field allows you to confirm whether the allegation involves conduct that is – in full or in part – connected to the subject employee’s work with your entity. 

You have 3 options:

If your investigation is suspended when you make your 7-day notification, you need to advise us of the reason. In response to the question, ‘Is the reportable conduct investigation suspended?’, you need to select the most appropriate option from the dropdown box. If you choose the ‘Yes – Other Reason’ option, a free text box will appear for you to provide any details.

If your investigation is suspended because there is a current JCPRP investigation underway, you should choose the option ‘Yes – Police investigation’. JCPRP investigations are generally led by Police so this is the most appropriate option.

Where the matter you are notifying was suspended but the suspension has lifted by the time you make your 7-day notification, you would choose: ‘No – not suspended’.

When making an assessment about whether or not an allegation is reportable, relevant entities may rely on the mandatory considerations. For this reason, the tick box to acknowledge the head of relevant entity or approved delegate has applied the mandatory considerations is not compulsory at the 7-day mark and does not appear on our web-based 7-day notification form.  That’s because you often won’t have the information you need at this stage to apply the mandatory considerations.

If you do rely on the mandatory considerations when assessing whether or not an allegation is reportable, please include detailed information about this in the documentation you provide when submitting your 7-day notification.

Please note: When making a finding, the head of relevant entity or approved delegate must apply the mandatory considerations. When completing your Entity Report for a matter notified to our office, you will have an opportunity to confirm you have considered these mandatory factors when making your finding/s.

The form allows for information about one employee to be completed.

If you need to enter information about more than one employee in connection with the same incident, you need to complete all the fields on the form for the first employee and then click on the submit button.

When you click submit, a pop up window will appear confirming receipt of your notification. This window will include a link that takes you to a form where you can enter information about an additional subject employee. This option is available to you even if the nature of the allegations against the second employee are slightly different. However, it should only be used when multiple employees are the subject of allegations relating to the same alleged incident – it is not a way of making multiple notifications about different alleged incidents.

Do NOT close the pop up window until you have submitted information relating to all subject employees. You will need to return to the pop up window to access the link again to add any additional subject employee/s. The link on the pop up window will remain active for one hour.

When you click on the link to enter the details of the second subject employee, it will take you to another page on which you can complete the relevant fields. Once you have completed all fields for the second employee, click on the submit button. A pop up will appear confirming receipt of your information for this employee.

To enter information relating to a third or subsequent employee, you need to return to the link in the original pop up window and repeat the process. You can repeat this process for as many employees as you need.

After completing all fields relating to your final subject employee, you need to click on submit for the final time. A pop up will appear confirming receipt of the information you have submitted for that employee.  

The form allows for information about one alleged victim to be completed.

If you need to enter information about more than one alleged victim, you need to complete all the fields on the form for the first alleged victim and then click on the submit button.

When you click submit, a pop up window will appear confirming receipt of your notification. This window will include a link that takes you to a form where you can enter information about an additional alleged victim.

You MUST keep this pop up window open until you have submitted information relating to all alleged victims. The link will remain active for one hour. Do NOT close this window.

When you click on the link to enter the details of the second alleged victim, it will take you to another page on which you can complete these fields. Once you have completed all fields for the second alleged victim, click on the submit button. A pop up will appear confirming receipt of your information for this alleged victim.

To enter information relating to a third or subsequent alleged victim, you need to return to the link in the original pop up window and repeat the process. You can repeat this process for as many alleged victims as you require.

After completing all fields relating to your final alleged victim, you need to click on submit for the final time. A pop up will appear confirming receipt of the information you have submitted for that alleged victim. 

Once you have submitted all information relating to your 7-day notification (including information relating to all subject employees and alleged victims) , and clicked on submit for the final time, our system will generate a copy of the information you have submitted in your 7-day notification, which you will receive by email. This email will be sent to the HRE or their delegate named on the 7-day notification form (cc your contact person). The email will contain a reference number for the information you have submitted. If you submit your notification between 9am-4pm on a weekday, you can expect to receive a copy of the information around one hour after it was submitted.

When we have assessed your notification, we will send you a formal acknowledgement of the matter notified. We will provide you with a case reference at that time.

If you notify us of matters regularly, you may find it helpful to set the browser on your device to remember the details in the sections of the form that are about your relevant entity – eg. ‘Section 2. Details of relevant entity’ in which you need to provide the name of your relevant entity and details of your HRE.

This is not something we are able to set up. You are best to raise the issue with your own IT team, who may be able to assist you.

If you’re experiencing any issues with the form, in the first instance, please ensure you have the latest version of your browser downloaded – eg. Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, Samsung Internet.

If you continue to have issues once you have downloaded the most recent version of your browser, please email us at 7day@ocg.nsw.gov.au.