On 1 January 2023 new authority was passed to the Victoria Registration & Qualifications Authory (VRQA) to assess and enforce compliance with the Child Safe Standards (Amendment Act of 2021). This has good and bad implications for schools. On one hand, the VRQA deeply understand the education system and context schools face. While on the other, they now have more power to intervene with spot fines or other penalties where they are not satisfied.
How does this impact schools?
This means for future audits, schools will need to be able to demonstrate their worker credentials (WWCC, VIT, etc) are regularly validated, their record keeping systems are robust and active risk mitigation is evident.
While schools may have had “good manual systems” in place – to adequately meet the standards and minimise enforcement from auditors, regular verification of worker records against the live government portals are essential. Many schools are now modifying their procedures to ensure they comply.
School administrators have a tough job keeping up with all the new changes, as well as ensuring systems are now robust. So, it is understandable why many may be feeling overwhelmed.
The compliance burden on schools is significant. Schools are probably second to health as the most regulated environment in Australia, so any way we can create efficiency at a reasonable cost is going to be attractive.” – Peter Bain, Business Manager at Plenty Valley Christian College – PVCC
The good news
There is a unique technology solution that with minimal effort upgrades a school’s safeguarding process to comply with the new Child Safety legislation in credential management and automates checking against the government portals. It is easy to implement and inexpensive.
Enter Oho – On a mission to help schools safeguard their students and staff, whilst relieving the huge task associated with compliance administration. Oho is a smart technology, “always on” solution, that enables schools to achieve 100 percent accreditation compliance and relieves the compliance administration burden by up to 80 percent. Oho can integrate to an existing record system, HR or payroll. Plus, it’s cost effective.
View Oho introduction video here.
In a nutshell, here is how Oho works:
Step 1: Collect
Oho will help collect and cleanse a school’s Working with Children Checks, Teacher Registrations and AHPRA checks, plus any in-house accreditations, like first aid certificates or vaccination records, eliminating standard errors and duplications. They are all simply uploaded with a bulk import saving on administration time.
Step 2: Store
With Oho, all sensitive data is securely stored in one single, cloud-based location in perpetuity. It can also automatically link employee, volunteers, and contractors to your organisation in the government portals.
To have a software driven approach that looks directly at those databases, saves an extraordinary amount of time.” – Peter Bain, Business Manager at Plenty Valley Christian College – PVCC
Step 3: Verify
Oho is always on working for a school by verifying records, weekly, putting tedious administrative tasks on autopilot, and robustly mitigating risk. So, in the event of a revocation or expiry, schools can act quickly.
Step 4: Maintain
Oho notifications mean teams only deal with exceptions and the automated verification process continuously updates on the dashboard, saving hours of manual processing and freeing staff up to concentrate on more important tasks.
Step 5: Report
Quick and easy reporting at the press of a button means schools will be ready for an audit anytime. Oho guarantees school administrative staff will highly value the reporting component and become hooked on showing their principal all the green ticks for compliance.
Want to find out more about how to perform compliance checks for Child Safe Standards in your school? Don’t wait for audit time – jump to action now.
Until the end of June 2023, Oho is offering all schools that sign up free data onboarding and cleansing worth $1,500. Schools larger than 500 core and support staff can also take advantage of a 5% discount if they sign up by 30 June 2023.
For more information call 1300 937 646 or visit www.weareoho.com/victorian-schools/