First Aid

Employers are required to have appropriate first aid arrangements in place including first aid training, first aid kits and first aid facilities to meet their obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004. A compliance code has been developed by WorkSafe Victoria, First Aid in the Workplace that provides guidance on how these obligations can be met. The compliance code recommends one first aid officer for workplaces with 10 to 50 employees and two first aid officers for 51 to 100 employees.

The minimum acceptable level of training for workplace first aid officers is the senior first aid certificate (often referred to as a level 2 first aid qualification). There are specific first aid qualifications that are mandatory for early childhood services staff under the Children’s Services Act. See Section 3 of KPV’s publication Policy Works V2 and the Children’s Services Regulations 2009 for more information on children’s services first aid qualifications.

Emergency Management

All early childhood services in Victoria are required to have an Emergency Management Plan (EMP) as part of their every day ‘best practice’ operations. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development have developed guidelines and templates to allow services to develop and review their EMPs.

The two publications are DEECD Emergency Management Guidelines and DEECD Emergency Management Plan.