Community Child Care Analysis of Draft Regulations

Community Child Care Analysis of Draft Regulations
Review the regulations and make your submission by April 14th

DEEWR has released the draft Education and Care Services National Regulations and you can download a copy here.

These national regulations will replace state based regulations and all services covered by the National Quality Framework will need to operate under them.

Community Child Care (CCC) is urging child care providers to review the regulations and if necessary make a submission to DEEWR.

Submissions need to be made by Thursday 14 April and should be sent to ECECQuality@deewr.gov.au

Community Child Care analysis
Community Child Care (CCC) has undertaken an initial analysis of the newly released Education and Care Services National Regulations and believes they will not pose major problems for NSW early education and centre based services.

In fact CCC says that in some ways the draft regulations make compliance easier for NSW services, primarily because:

There is more logic to their structure than the NSW Children's Services Regulation 2004. Services should find it easier to locate the relevant section for any situation they are facing at their centre.
They are not as restrictive in regards to the requirements they place on children's services, but still provide children attending services with full protection. Examples of changed requirements are particularly noticeable in the facilities areas. For example whereas the NSW Children's Services Regulation 2004 specifies that centre based services must have one toilet and basin for 15 children, the draft Education and Care Services National Regulations specifies that there must be "adequate, developmentally appropriate and age appropriate toilet, hand washing, bathing and drying facilities."

What does this mean for services? According to the CCC it means that if a service can show that its facilities and practices are enabling quality care under the requirements of the National Quality Standard, there is less rigidity about how it must be achieved.

What do you think about the draft regulations? Go to CareforKids Social to share your thoughts.