Compliance Bulletin
Welcome to the April 2025 edition
4 April 2025
In this issue, there are important updates and reminders to ensure our collective adherence to compliance standards and the continued success of our programs.
We appreciate your ongoing dedication and commitment to maintaining the highest standards of safety, integrity, and operational excellence. Your efforts are crucial in supporting the families we serve and upholding the values of the HIPPY program.
In this bulletin, you will find updates on retention calculation changes, safeguarding compliance, Disclosable Court Outcomes (DCO) and Risk Assessment.
We also feature a Compliance Spotlight on Section 14.1 of the HIPPY Sublicence and Funding Agreement along with our new section in the Compliance Bulletin, Child Safe Principles - Unpacking the practice.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact your Site Advisor.
Warm regards,
The HIPPY Australia Team
Retention calculation
In response to site feedback, we reviewed how HIPPY Australia calculates participant retention to indicate whether a site has met its retention target on the Compliance Checklist.
As a result of the review we have made some changes to retention calculations to support sites to meet retention compliance requirement by reducing the impact of families exiting before the enrolment cut-off date.
What’s the change?
From 2025, HIPPY Australia will calculate retention using the number of families that are enrolled and remain active on the enrolment cut-off date (31 May). That means that:
- if a family exits prior to this date, the family that exits will not impact a site's retention.
- If a new family replaces that old family and remains active on the cut-off date, they will form part of the retention calculation.
These changes will be reflected in a revised version of the Compliance Checklist, which will be made available on the HIPPY Online Library soon. In the meantime, we have created two examples of what the changes mean.
Retention Calculation Examples
| Site 1 | Site 2 |
|---|---|
Site 1 recruits 30 families and during the enrolment period, three families exit prior to May 31. | Site 2 recruits 30 families and four of these families exit before May 31. |
However, prior to May 31, the Coordinator recruits four new families to replace the exited families | |
On May 31, there are 27 families active. | On May 31, there are 30 families active. |
At the time of graduation the following year, | At the time of graduation the following year, |
This site's retention would be 25/27=93%. | The site's retention would be 25/30=83%. |
What hasn't changed?
As per your HIPPY Sublicence and Funding Agreement, your recruitment target remains the same. Furthermore, you are still required to retain 80% of your families over the two years of the program.
Annual Statement of Safeguarding
We like to thank you, the Network, for your support and cooperation to our recent request for your 2024 Annual Statement of Safeguarding Compliance.
We appreciate that the timeframe was tight and challenging. We’d like to acknowledge that you met this challenge head on, and we have been able to meet the DSS Reporting requirements. Your support and commitment is gratefully appreciated.
Talking about Disclosable Court Outcomes (DCO) and Risk Assessment
Disclosable Court Outcomes (DCO) and Risk Assessment are an important element of Safeguarding obligations. So, let’s take a moment to get ‘an easy to understand’ overview of the basic process and a summary of the actions.
Basic process
Summary of actions
- Complete NCCHCs prior to commencement, and every three years
- Ensure all staff hold valid WWCCs
- Maintain records of all NCCHCs and WWCCs
- Complete Risk Assessments for new DCOs and submit to HIPPY Australia if applicable.
Your cooperation in maintaining the safety and integrity of our program is appreciated. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to ensuring the child safety and well-being and the compliance of your staff and services.
If you have any questions regarding the above requirements, please do not hesitate to contact hippysafeguarding@bsl.org.au
Compliance Spotlight
Your obligations under Section 14.1 of the HIPPY Sublicence and Funding Agreement 2025, particularly in relation to Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks (NCCHC), Working With Children Checks (WWCC), and Disclosable Court Outcome (DCO) Risk Assessments.
Key Compliance Requirements:
Child Safe Principles - Unpacking the practice
This month, HIPPY Australia is shining a spotlight on Principle 1: Child Safety and Wellbeing is Embedded in Organisational Leadership, Governance, and Culture. Creating safe environments for children is a shared responsibility, and the Child Safe Organisations National Principles provide a framework to help organisations uphold their duty of care. Let’s get started by clicking the link here!
If you have any questions or concerns brought up by this month's Compliance Bulletin, please contact your Site Advisor.
