Victoria has 11 Child Safe Standards. They are a legal obligation rather than a suggestion, and they apply to sporting clubs that run activities for children. Since 23 February 2026 the Social Services Regulator has overseen them, taking over from the Commission for Children and Young People. For a parent, the practical test is whether a club can show you its child safety policy and name the person responsible for it.
Written by Cameron James, founder and head coach at Liddicoat Basketball. Over a decade coaching junior basketball in Melbourne, including at Big V level, and rep teams from Under 12s through to Under 18s.
Last updated August 2026.
Until early 2026 the Commission for Children and Young People was the default regulator for organisations like community sporting clubs. That changed on 23 February 2026. Responsibility for the Child Safe Standards and the Reportable Conduct Scheme moved to the Social Services Regulator, which also administers the Working with Children Check. The Commission's own site confirms the handover and says reports made to it before that date were transferred across, so nobody needed to lodge anything twice.
The Standards themselves did not change. The same 11 obligations that started on 1 July 2022 still apply, word for word. What changed is who monitors compliance, who you contact about an organisation that is falling short, and where the enforcement powers sit. The Regulator publishes its contact details on the Victorian Government site and takes general enquiries on 1300 310 778.
Expect the paperwork to lag. As at 24 August 2026, Basketball Victoria's child safety pages still direct parents to the Commission, and even one Victorian Government overview page still lists the Commission as the default regulator for sport and recreation clubs while a different page on the same site names the Social Services Regulator instead. That is a documentation problem rather than a safety problem, but it does mean you can easily end up reading advice that is six months out of date.
If you are trying to work out who is responsible for what, the layers run like this. The club handles day to day supervision. The association sits above the club. Basketball Victoria and Basketball Australia deal with sport specific conduct. The Social Services Regulator sits outside the sport entirely, as the state regulator for the Standards.
The Standards are written for organisations, not for parents, which is why most club websites reproduce them verbatim and leave you none the wiser. Stripped back, they cover four things. Culture and leadership. Listening to children and families. Screening and training the adults. Writing it down and reviewing it.
Standard 1 is specifically about cultural safety for Aboriginal children and young people. Standards 2 through 5 deal with leadership and governance, children participating in decisions that affect them, keeping families informed and involved, and making sure the arrangements actually work for children with disability, children from other cultural backgrounds and LGBTIQA+ young people rather than just the majority of the group.
Standards 6 through 9 are the operational ones. Suitable people in roles that involve children, and supported once they are there. Complaints processes built around a child rather than around the organisation. Real training for staff and volunteers, not a one off induction slide. Physical and online environments set up so harm is harder to commit. Standard 9 covers team chats and club social accounts, which is the part clubs most often overlook.
Standards 10 and 11 close the loop. Review how implementation is going and improve it, and document how the organisation is safe for children. A club that has never once reviewed its own child safety practices is not meeting Standard 10, even if nothing has ever gone wrong there.
A written child safety policy you can find without asking, rather than one produced for you on request. If you cannot locate it in a couple of minutes on the website, that is a fair thing to raise.
A named person. The role is usually called a Child Safety Officer or a Child Welfare Officer, and Basketball Victoria's guidance asks associations and clubs to appoint one. You should be able to find out who holds that role without a scavenger hunt, and a good club will tell you at registration rather than waiting to be asked.
A complaints process that says what happens next, not just an email address. Who assesses a concern, roughly how long it takes, and whether you get told the outcome. Standard 7 asks for processes that are child focused, and a process nobody has written down cannot be child focused.
Evidence that the adults are screened and trained. No club is going to publish a list of Working with Children Check numbers, and none should. But a club should be able to tell you it keeps a register, that coaches are checked before they take a session rather than during the season, and that volunteers get some form of child safety induction.
The Child Safe Standards are about systems. They set out what an organisation must have in place. They are not an incident reporting scheme, and a compliant club is not a club where nothing can ever go wrong.
The Reportable Conduct Scheme is the separate mechanism that forces an organisation to notify the Regulator when an allegation is made about one of its workers or volunteers. It is worth knowing that the scheme's covered organisations are built around schools, out of home care, hospitals, approved education and care services, certain cultural institutions, and youth organisations whose primary activity includes providing overnight camps. A community basketball club is not on that list unless it also fits one of those categories.
That gap surprises people, and it is the sort of thing nobody volunteers at registration night. A club can be squarely covered by the Child Safe Standards and still sit outside the Reportable Conduct Scheme. It does not remove anyone's obligation to report suspected abuse to police, and it does not stop you raising a Child Safe Standards concern with the Regulator. It means the automatic notification duty may not attach in the way parents assume it does.
The Working with Children Check is a third and separate thing again. All three now sit with the same regulator, which is the whole point of the 2026 consolidation, but they do genuinely different jobs and none of them substitutes for the others.
Nobody wants to be the parent who turns up at registration with a clipboard. You do not have to be. Most of what is above is answerable from a club website in a few minutes, and the rest are ordinary questions to put to a committee member at a normal moment rather than at half time.
The framing that works is curiosity rather than audit. Who is your child safety officer and how do I contact them. Where do I find the club's policy. What happens if I raise something with you. Any well run club answers all three happily, because it has already had to think about the answers.
If the answers are vague, treat that as information rather than proof of anything. Volunteer run clubs are stretched thin, and a club with thin documentation can still be a warm, well supervised place for a kid. But documentation is what the law actually asks for, and in my experience a club that has done that part has usually thought about the rest too.
A note on what this page is. Liddicoat Basketball is not a reporting body and does not take reports of any kind. If you have a concern about a child, it needs to go to your club or association, to Basketball Victoria or Basketball Australia, to the Social Services Regulator, or to the police, depending on what it is. Those organisations are the ones with the power and the obligation to act on it.
The Social Services Regulator. It took over the Child Safe Standards and the Reportable Conduct Scheme from the Commission for Children and Young People on 23 February 2026, and it also administers the Working with Children Check. Its general enquiries number is 1300 310 778.
Compulsory. The Victorian Government states that if your organisation provides services or facilities for children you have a legal obligation to comply, and it names entities providing cultural, sporting or recreational services for children among those covered. They are not a voluntary code.
There are 11, and they took effect on 1 July 2022, replacing an earlier and shorter set. They have not changed since. The February 2026 change was about who enforces them, not about what they require.
As at 24 August 2026 a lot of sport sector material still names the Commission, and so does at least one Victorian Government page. It is out of date rather than alarming. The Commission's own notice confirms the transfer, and Child Safe Standards concerns now go to the Social Services Regulator.
Not automatically. The scheme's list of covered organisations centres on schools, hospitals, out of home care, approved education and care services and youth organisations whose primary activity includes overnight camps. A community sport club is not on that list unless it also falls into one of those categories.
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Facts on this page were compiled from the official sources below and written up in our own words. Dates, fees and venues change every season, so confirm anything you are relying on with the association directly.
This page was last updated August 2026. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Liddicoat Basketball runs skill development for junior players around Melbourne. Cameron coaches the sessions himself, and the plans are built to sit around a normal domestic or rep season rather than compete with it.