From 24 April 2026, NSW education and care services are required to hold a policy dealing with protected disclosures — a whistleblower policy — under the protected disclosure and detrimental action provisions inserted into the National Law as applied in NSW by the Children (Education and Care Services National Law Application) Amendment Act 2025. Source: NSW Department of Education, child safety reforms.
Why a generic template will not do
A standard corporate whistleblower policy is written for the Corporations Act. It talks about eligible whistleblowers, officers and auditors. It does not talk about an educator reporting a colleague’s conduct toward a child, which is the disclosure this regime exists to protect.
What your policy has to cover, in practice
- How a disclosure can be made, and to whom — including where the person receiving it is the subject of it
- What protection the discloser has, in plain language a casual educator will understand
- What detrimental action means, and that it is prohibited
- How the disclosure is recorded, stored and restricted
- How the service responds, and within what timeframe
- Who is trained on it, and how often
The part most services will miss
A policy alone is not the obligation. Staff have to be made aware of it. That means a record: who was briefed, when, by whom, and what they were told. If you cannot produce that record, the policy is a document rather than a control.
Members: the protected disclosures record, staff briefing register and disclosure log are in the Responding & Reporting category, updated for the April 2026 tranche.
General information for NSW education and care services, not legal advice. Check the current provisions on the NSW legislation register before relying on them.