Children’s Worker Safety Checks
Learn what a Children’s Worker Safety Check is and when you may need to complete one. Download or print our handy quick guide that gives you key information at a glance.
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Quick guide: Understanding Children’s Worker Safety Checks
This quick guide gives an overview of what is involved in a Safety Check and is available to download and print.
Children's Worker Safety Checks
Video transcript for Children's Worker Safety Checks
We are improving the way we manage Children’s Worker Safety Checks, to help keep Aotearoa’s children, rangatahi, and whānau safe. Safety checking isn’t just required by the law, it’s the right thing to do.
A Children’s Worker Safety Check is a legislative requirement under the Children’s Act 2014. These checks are more than just police vetting, they aim to reduce the risk of harm to tamariki and rangatahi.
Even if your organisation doesn’t employ or engage children's workers, it’s still important for you to confirm your status with us.
If someone in your organisation currently works with, or may in the future work with, children under the age of 18 without a parent or guardian present, you may need to complete a safety check. This includes face-to-face, over the phone, and email contact.
You can complete a safety check for your employees internally within your organisation, or externally via CVCheck.
There are two types of evidence that ACC can accept for your personal safety check: a children’s worker safety check assessment from CVCheck, or a completed ACC8003 form from a current or previous employer. Once a safety check has been completed, it is valid for three years.
Keep an eye out for an email from us, where we will ask you to confirm your safety check status via a quick online form. Even if your organisation does not engage or employ children’s workers, you will still need to confirm your status with us.
Once we have your status recorded, we will ask you to renew this annually for your organisation.
If you’re a contracted supplier and have already confirmed your status via our website forms, we’ll contact you once your annual declaration is due.
It’s important that we all work together to reduce the risk of harm to tamariki and rangatahi.
Visit our website acc.co.nz/cwsc for more information.
What is a Children’s Worker Safety Check?
A Children’s Worker Safety Check is a legislative requirement under the Children’s Act 2014.
A safety check may be required for people who:
- currently work with children under the age of 18, without a parent or guardian present
- may work with children in the future.
The purpose of this check is to reduce the risk of harm to young people. The check requires people employed or engaged in work that involves contact with children to be safety checked. This includes face-to-face, over the phone, or email contact.
Completing a Safety Check
You can complete a safety check for your employees and anyone you engage either internally within your organisation, or externally via CV Check.
Once a year, you will receive an online form requesting a declaration to confirm the safety check status for your organisation and that you comply with the law. If you also personally provide services to young people, we will ask you to submit evidence from a third party like CV Check to demonstrate you have personally completed a safety check.
Evidence is only required for you personally as a children's worker, not for your employees or contracted providers or those you engage.
Evidence ACC can accept
Evidence can include one of the following:
a) A successful CVCheck assessment from a children’s worker safety check performed within the past three years. If you’ve never had a CWSC done, you’ll need to complete one via a third-party provider. CVCheck (NZ) Ltd is the only third-party provider gazetted by the New Zealand Government to perform children’s worker safety checks. Visit the CVCheck (NZ) Ltd website to see how to order a children's worker safety check .
If you have had your safety checks completed via CVCheck Ltd, you will need to send us a copy of your CVCheck Assessment. A sample of what this certificate looks like can be found on the CV Check web site CVCheck-CWSC-Assessment-SAMPLE.pdf.
b) A completed ACC8003 children’s worker safety check verification form, showing that you have a completed children’s worker safety check through a current or previous employer within the past three years. This form must be completed by your current or former employer, you can't complete your own form. You can find a copy of this form on ACC's website.
You are not able to send a copy of another organisation's safety check. ACC requires a copy of a completed CVCheck Assessment or Employer Verification Form to validate your response.
Components of a Safety Check
A Children’s Worker Safety Check includes the following components:
For new children's workers or workers who have not previously been safety checked
- ID Verification
- NZ children's worker police vet (the ‘Clean Slate Act’ does not apply to offences specified in the Children's Act 2014)
- Professional membership check (registration and annual practising certificate)
- Employment or personal references
- Employment history
- Interview with the applicant
- Risk assessment
For children's workers who have had a previous check in the last three years
- ID Verification
- NZ children's worker police vet (the 'Clean Slate Act' does not apply to offences specified in the Children's Act 2014)
- Professional membership check (registration and annual practising certificate) and
- Risk assessment
Does a Police Vetting Report count as a safety check?
A police Vetting Report is only one part of completing a Children’s Worker Safety Check. If you have declared you are a children’s worker, we require a completed Children’s Worker Safety Check CVCheck Assessment, or Employer Verification Form to validate your response. A Police Vetting Report is not enough. You can find the different components of what is required for a Safety Check above.
Confirming your Children's Worker Safety Check status
We will send you an email with a link to a form asking your organisation to provide us with confirmation of your Children’s Worker Safety Check status. You do not need to do anything until you receive this email.
Legislation and definitions
You can read the Act and Regulations for working with Children
Children worker safety checking in the Children's Act 2014
Children’s (Requirements for Safety Checks of Children’s Workers) Regulations 2015
These documents have a number of terms that may be hard to interpret. We have listed terms and their definitions.
Here you can find a guide from Education that helps interpret the Act.
Standard safety checking under the Vulnerable Children Act 2014 (education.govt.nz)
A children’s/tamaiti worker
Defined by the Children's Act 2014 as a person who works in, or provides, a regulated service, and the person’s work:
- may or does involve regular or overnight contact with a child or children, other than with children who are co-workers, and
- takes place without a parent or guardian of the child, or of each child, being present.
A child/tamaiti or children/tamariki or teen/rangatahi
Are people under the age of 18 years.
Work
Means work which is:
- paid, or
- undertaken as part of an educational or vocational training course.
Regular or overnight contact
Means:
- at least once each week, or
- on at least 4 days each month, or
- overnight.
Contact
Means contact which is physical, oral communication, whether in person or by telephone, or through any electronic medium, including by way of writing or visual images.
Employ or engage
Employ or engage can include:
- anyone who a vendor/supplier enters into an employment agreement with to deliver services to ACC clients, including staff and contractors, or
- anyone who has an agreement to undertake work on behalf of ACC or the vendor/supplier. This includes sole practitioners and owner/operators who have directly contracted with ACC, and anyone who a vendor/supplier appoints to deliver services.
Core worker
A core children's worker is a person whose work:
- requires, or allows them to be the only children's worker present, or
- is the worker who has primary responsibility for, or authority over, a child or children.
Regulated services
Regulated services are outlined in Schedule 1 of the Children’s Act 2014 and include a range of health and support services, including services provided by health practitioners.
Contact us
If you have any questions, email us.
Email cwsc@acc.co.nz