To ensure children’s health and safety, and comply with the requirements of the National Law and Regulations and our policies and procedures, we will only allow the following activities to occur in respect of individual children if they are properly authorised in writing and dated:

• Administration of medication
• Administration of medical treatment, dental treatment, general first aid products and ambulance transportation (required in enrolment records)
• Excursions including regular outings
• Taking of children’s photographs
• Posting of children’s photographs on the service social media account
• Collection of children by people other than parents eg child
  • leaves in accordance with written authorisation of a parent or authorised nominee
  •  is given into care of a person or taken outside the premises for urgent medical treatment or because of another emergency
• Disclosure of a child’s personal information where this is not legally required, or families would not expect the disclosure

Written authorisations will contain all information required under the National Regulations and service policies – please see specific policies for more details.

Our service will accept verbal authorisations in the following situations:

• there is a medical emergency (authorisations are not required for asthma and anaphylactic emergencies)
• parents or authorised nominees are unable to collect a child before the service closes and authorise an alternate person to collect the child

Whenever a person not known to educators is authorised verbally or in writing to collect the child, they must be adequately identified by educators before the child is released. See Delivery and Collection of Children Policy for more information.

Refusing Authorisations

Staff will refuse an authorisation if it unreasonably risks the child’s safety, is not in line with our policies and procedures or is fraudulent. For example staff will refuse an authorisation in the following situations:

• the authorisation is not (or does not appear to be) made by an authorised person
• the authorisation does not comply with aspects of our policies and procedures eg medication is not in the original container, does not have the child’s name on it, has expired, has an illegible label or the authorised dosage does not match the doctor’s instructions
• an authorised nominee, or person authorised by a parent or authorised nominee, does not appear to be capable of safely collecting the child (Delivery and Collection of Children Policy)

For transparency and accuracy, if staff refuse an authorisation, they will record the following information in the child’s file:

• the details of the authorisation
• why the authorisation was refused
• actions taken eg parent asked to supply medication in original container