Two child safety training obligations, not one: what every service needs by 27 August

There are two child safety training obligations sitting on Australian education and care services right now, not one. They are commonly assumed to be the same requirement. They are not, and completing one does not discharge the other.

The first is national and applies in every state and territory. The second is set by your own regulatory authority and differs depending on where your service is. The deadline of 27 August 2026 belongs to the first one, which is why it is the one everybody is talking about, and why the second one is the one getting missed.

The national requirement, and it covers more people than most lists do

Any person who works in an NQF-regulated education and care service must complete the national child safety training, regardless of whether they work directly with children. That includes volunteers and students on placement.

The practical shape of it:

• Two Foundation courses, both of them, roughly two hours in total.
• Free, and available only through Geccko, the Australian Government Department of Education platform. Training completed elsewhere does not meet the requirement.
• Recompleted every two years. It is not annual.
• Each person should register with a personal email address, so the record travels with them rather than with the service.

The renewal cycle is worth saying plainly because several state child protection requirements are annual, and a two-yearly requirement sitting beside an annual one is exactly how the two get crossed.

There are two deadlines, and the start date decides which is yours

The second one is the one to check today. In the rush towards the 27th it is easy to treat everybody as having the same date, and for a recent starter that date may already have passed. Go through your last few starters by name rather than as a group.

Who gets missed, every time

Most gaps in a training list are not people who refused. They are people nobody thought to include, and it is the same two groups at almost every service.

• Regular and semi-regular volunteers. Nobody employs them, so they are absent from the payroll list most services build from.
• Students on placement. Same reason. They arrive through a training provider rather than through recruitment.

Everyone else is more obvious but worth naming: persons with management or control, nominated supervisors and persons in day-to-day charge, family day care coordinators, and all staff including family day care educators.

Providers are responsible for deciding who is captured at their own service, based on a person's role and duties, how regularly they are engaged, the level of contact they may have with children, and their own child safety risk assessment. Where an arrangement is unclear, the published guidance is to take a precautionary approach and ask your regulatory authority rather than assume.

The second obligation: your state or territory's child protection training

National child safety training and state child protection training are two different requirements. Every jurisdiction sets its own approved child protection course, and they differ in who must complete it, which course counts, and how often it is renewed.

This is the part that cannot be answered nationally, and it is the part most likely to leave a service short. If you only take one action from this article, make it this: find out what your own regulatory authority requires, in addition to the Geccko modules.

Victoria as a worked example

Victoria shows how far the two can diverge, which is why it is useful even if you are not there.

Victorian services must also complete EC PROTECT by 27 August 2026 and then every 12 months. But it applies to a narrower group than the national training does: nominated supervisors, persons in day-to-day charge, family day care coordinators, and staff and volunteers who work directly with children, including students.

Staff and volunteers who do not work directly with children meet their Victorian child protection requirement through the national Foundation modules alone. They do not complete EC PROTECT as well.

There is also a recognition provision worth checking before booking anyone in again: a valid certificate showing EC PROTECT was completed between 1 September 2025 and 27 February 2026 counts as meeting the 27 August 2026 deadline.

So in Victoria a service runs two cycles side by side, two-yearly and annual, over two partly overlapping groups of people. Your jurisdiction will have its own arrangement. Confirm it rather than assuming it mirrors this one.

After 27 August, the next deadline is advanced training

Foundation training is not the end of it, and the advanced requirement has its own timing:

• In a relevant role before 30 September 2026: complete advanced training by 31 March 2027.
• Starting in one on or after 30 September 2026: within three months of starting.

Approved providers must also keep the worker register up to date.

What to do this week

• Write the list from who is in the building, not from who is on the payroll.
• Check your recent starters separately. On or after 14 August is a different deadline and it may already have passed.
• Find out what your own state or territory requires on top of the national modules, and who it applies to.
• Ask for the certificate, not the assurance. Geccko issues one, so there is no reason to rely on memory.
• Write the renewal date down now, while you are already looking at it. Two years from completion for the national training, and whatever your jurisdiction sets for the other.

Requirements differ by state and territory and can change. Always confirm the current position with your regulatory authority.

A tracker you can print and fill in

We built a two page tracker for exactly this job: one page to fill in, one page of detail to keep with your records.

Download the Child Safety Training Tracker (PDF, 2 pages)

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