Working with Children Check
All organisations in Victoria that provide services or facilities for children are required to comply with Child Safe Standards.
To comply with these Standards, Parks Victoria now requires all volunteers that operate on the parks estate to hold a valid Working with Children Check (WWCC) by 30 June 2022.
Working with Children Checks are FREE for volunteers to obtain.
Parks Victoria is implementing the WWCC requirements because:
- Parks Victoria is required to act in accordance with the Victoria Child Safe Standards, and must act to prevent all forms of abuse and harm to children, including by ensuring that all employees and volunteers who operate in our Parks are suitable to work around children
- Young people are increasingly being encouraged to visit and experience parks
- Many young people are seeking volunteering opportunities
- An increasing number of volunteer groups are actively engaging young people in their activities to promote knowledge transfer and successful succession planning
- Volunteer activities are encouraging engagement of the broader family group including children
- Volunteers working in parks have a public facing role that can result in contact with young people
- Many parks have shared public facilities
- Child safety incidents have occurred and continue to occur within our parks
- There are volunteers who have failed their WWCC and are therefore unsuitable for volunteering at Parks Victoria
- Parks Victoria is dedicated to providing a child safe environment
Volunteers who do not hold a WWCC will no longer be able to volunteer on Parks estate after 30 June 2022. A record of proof that a WWCC has been obtained must be uploaded onto Parks Victoria’s online volunteer portal ParkConnect.
For Volunteer Groups, Parks Victoria staff will not be able to approve volunteer activities with active volunteer members that have not obtained a valid WWCC.
Working with Children Checks are FREE for volunteers. There is also a new process to apply through the Service Victoria app with no need to go to Australia Post. All the information on how to complete the check using Service Victoria can be found here or if you want to complete online please see the ‘how to apply flowchart’ here.
We understand some volunteers and groups may be experiencing difficulties in either the process of attaining a WWCC or uploading the record on ParkConnect. Over the next few months, Parks Victoria will be offering additional support to enable volunteers to obtain and record their WWCC.
If you or your group requires assistance please fill in the request for support form below and detail how we can best assist you.
We look forward to continuing our valuable work together while keeping children safe and strengthening volunteering now and into the future.
If you would like to get in touch please email volunteer@parks.vic.gov.au or phone 13 19 63 or contact your local staff contact.
Thank you,
Parks Victoria