Working with Children Checks

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution
11th National Conference on Volunteering 9
March 2006 Margaret Dawkins Manager,
Volunteering Secretariat Department for Community
Development Western Australia

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden. A West Australian Solution

• Context
• Working with Children legislation proclaimed 1
  January 2006
• Supported by the volunteering sector but brings
  financial, administrative, ethical and
  informational challenges
• This paper looks at ways the state government is
  working to reduce the financial burden for the
  sector
• Focus on reduced fee police checks for volunteers
  since 2003 with the National Police Checks for
  Volunteers program (NPCVP)

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• National Police Checks for Volunteers
• 30,000 volunteer checks and 720 registered
  organisations
• 9 per check
• Very popular with sector- low cost, fast
  turnaround, convenient
• Raised awareness, educative exercise for new
  chums

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• Working with Children Legislation in
• Western Australia
• Broad reaching, covering child related work in
  the private, public and non-government sectors
• Replaces all other screening processes
• Accesses criminal history information on
  convictions, charges and material evidence

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• Captures new and existing volunteers and
  employees
• Hard to quantify number of volunteers impacted
  but may be up to 100,000
• Exemption for parents volunteering in an activity
  involving their child
• Short term visitors to the state exempt

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• Strategies to Reduce the Financial Burden
• Subsidised volunteer checks 10
• Spreading costs over 3 years with a phasing in
  strategy based on age of child
• Also spread over 12 months within each calendar
  year for existing volunteers
• Continuation of reduced fee National Police
  checks for non child related volunteering and
  child related but out of WWC scope

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• NPCVP Survey shows 61 of volunteers in child
  related work also perform other non-child related
  tasks needing police checks
• Introduction on 1 January 2006 of free National
  Police Checks for volunteers in non-government
  and local government sectors required to have WWC
  check

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• Screening- More than just Police Checks
• EmployRight!
• Low cost and no cost training in integrated
  screening and supervision processes
• Helpline for assistance with complex human
  resources and industrial relations
• One stop shop community service support website

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Working with Children Checks- easing the
volunteering burden A West Australian Solution

• Volunteers Who Dont Make the Grade- What do you
  do?
• Meeting legal obligations and ensuring
  protection
• Preserving volunteers privacy and civil rights
• Planning policies and processes about how
  handle and who will handle well in advance