New functionality has been added to police vetting systems to enable employers to submit vetting requests for children’s workers, as required under the Vulnerable Children Act 2014 (VCA).
The Act requires all paid employees and contractors who work with children for state-funded organisations to be safety checked.
It defines state sector employees working with children as ‘core’ or ‘non-core’ children’s workers. Core workers may work alone with or have prime responsibility for children without a parent or guardian present; non-core workers will be supervised by core workers and never work alone with children.
This also applies to unpaid people working with children as part of an educational or vocational training course.
Safety checking started on 1 July 2015 for new core children's workers. The requirement for safety checking new non-core workers starts on 1 July 2016.
The Act allows three and four years to complete safety checking of the existing children's workforce. The entire central state-funded workforce will need to have been safety checked by 1 July 2019.
It is important that employers phase safety checking of their existing children's workers over this period. This will avoid a spike in demand for police vetting both now and every three years, when safety checks are renewed.
For more information about safety checking go to the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki website.