OAC Safety Updates for Parents and Families
At Only About Children, the health, safety, and wellbeing of every child is our highest priority. Recently, there has been increased attention on the early childhood education sector, including larger providers like OAC. We want to reassure you that we addressed these matters at the time, following all required processes, and we apologise again to those involved. We are committed to maintaining high standards and continually improving our practices, systems, and processes.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’ll be updating these FAQs regularly with the latest information. If your question isn’t listed, feel free to submit it using the form below. If it’s relevant to others, we’ll add the answer to this page. For more specific enquiries, a member of our team will contact you directly.
About Only About Children
With nearly 20 years of experience in early childhood education and care, Only About Children operates over 80 campuses across Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. We are proud to support over 8,000 families and employ more than 2,000 passionate and skilled educators and staff. Together, we are dedicated to providing high-quality education and care that empowers every child to reach their full potential.
Who Owns Only About Children?
Only About Children (OAC) is owned by parent company, Bright Horizons, a global leader with over 40 years of experience in early childhood education, OAC is also part of a network that has been recognised among the Best Workplaces™ for 20 consecutive years.
Why is Only About Children being mentioned in the media?
Only About Children would like to acknowledge that the stories in the media in the past few weeks about the early childhood education and care sector have been difficult for families, children, and educators. It highlights the importance of ensuring quality early childhood education and care.
Recently, the NSW Parliament has required the NSW Department of Education to release information about incidents and compliance matters issued to childcare providers across NSW, including Only About Children. This information is part of the governance of our sector, which includes the National Quality Framework and the National Law and Regulations. Information of this nature is also likely to feature in the recently announced NSW Parliamentary review into the sector.
In any service-based industry, serious incidents can occur and while we strive for the highest standards, we are truly sorry when they do. We continuously work to ensure that we learn from every experience to improve our practice.
The health, safety, and wellbeing of every child in our care is our highest priority. We strive for excellence across all areas of our operations, with policies guided by leading state and federal health and education bodies. Our campuses provide safe, nurturing, and consistent environments where children can thrive.
How many of your campuses meet the National Quality Standard?
With over 80 campuses, 95% of these are rated Meeting or Exceeding the National Quality Standard, reflecting our dedication to quality education and care. The remaining 5% includes campuses that are on a continuous improvement journey, as well as a newly opened campus that’s awaiting it’s first rating.
What safety protocols are in place at OAC?
We are committed to high standards and continuous improvement in all areas of our operations, including our practices, systems and processes.
We have always and continue to:
- Ensure all employees (permanent and casual) have a valid working with children check
- Deploy strong recruitment processes – including face to face interviews, reference and background checks
- Hold in person inductions for every employee – including safety and compliance learning, and child protection training
- Ensure strong and active supervision practices at campus
- Regular training and development for team across a range of practice and safety areas
- Age-appropriate educational resources for children, with specialist training for educators on how to use them
As a child safe organisation, we have furthered our measures to remain at the forefront of sector practice. These include:
- Refresher training for all campus directors on safeguarding and reporting incidents requirements
- Further enhancements to recruitment process, including additional interview questions focused on child safety and safeguarding
- Additional central oversight and performance management of casual employees
- Safeguarding expert appointed to provide advice, support and training
- Partnered with an expert external training provider to provide intensive training, webinars and annual online training on child safe practice.
