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Child safety laws
In addition to the duty of care owed to employees, volunteers, clients and, in some cases, the public, an organisation will often have specific responsibilities in relation to children who engage with its services or participate as volunteers. Organisations that work with children have legal obligations to protect their physical, mental and emotional safety.
These obligations arise under a range of legal frameworks, including negligence, work health and safety laws, and specific child safety regimes such as child safe standards, Working with Children Check schemes, reportable conduct schemes and mandatory reporting laws.
We have developed a fact sheet for each state and territory to help community organisations understand their legal obligations when working with children, and identify key risks and practical steps to manage them.
Each fact sheet covers:
- Duty of care and civil liability: the obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harm to children, including the risk of abuse
- Child safe standards: requirements to implement child‑safe governance, policies and practices
- Reporting obligations: duties to report concerns about child abuse to police, child protection authorities or regulators
- Screening checks: requirements to conduct Working with Children Checks and other background screening
- Risk management and supervision: assessing activities, supervising workers and reducing opportunities for harm
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Record‑keeping: maintaining appropriate records
Note – Background checks
For more detailed information about conducting back ground checks including information on Working with Children Checks, Police Checks and NDIS Worker Screening Checks, see our screening checks guides for each state and territory.
The content on this webpage was last updated in July 2026 and is not legal advice. See full disclaimer and copyright notice.
