Professional conduct, privacy, and policy responsibilities
QA2, QA4, QA5, QA6, and QA7
Professional conduct, boundaries, and Code of Conduct
Professional conduct protects children, supports respectful relationships, strengthens trust, and helps maintain a child safe culture where expectations are clear.
Respect
Use respectful behaviour
Treat children, families, colleagues, students, volunteers, visitors, contractors, and community members with dignity, courtesy, fairness, and respect.
Boundaries
Keep roles clear
Use clear professional boundaries so interactions with children, families, colleagues, and others remain safe, transparent, and appropriate.
Accountability
Raise concerns
Report concerns, breaches, unsafe conduct, or behaviour that is inconsistent with the Code of Conduct through the correct NERPSA pathway.
Code of Conduct and child safe expectations
Code of Conduct
The Code of Conduct sets shared expectations
NERPSA’s Code of Conduct helps staff understand the standard of behaviour expected when working with children, families, colleagues, students, volunteers, visitors, contractors, and the broader community.
It supports child safety by making expectations visible. It also helps staff recognise when behaviour is respectful, professional, transparent, and safe — and when behaviour needs to be questioned, reported, or stopped.
Child safety accountability
Behaviour inconsistent with NERPSA’s child safe commitment
Behaviour that is inconsistent with NERPSA’s child safe commitment, Code of Conduct, policies, or legal obligations will be responded to promptly and proportionately.
Depending on the nature and seriousness of the matter, this may include risk management, review or investigation, external notification, referral to police or relevant authorities, disciplinary action, legal action, limits on attendance at the service, or termination of engagement or employment.
Conduct guide
Expected and concerning conduct
Open this guide for examples of conduct that supports child safety and conduct that should be questioned, raised, or reported.
Professional behaviour in practice
With children
Use warm, respectful, developmentally appropriate interactions. Do not shame, threaten, isolate, intimidate, ridicule, use rough handling, or create fear.
With families
Communicate professionally, protect privacy, use service pathways, and maintain clear boundaries between personal and professional relationships.
With colleagues
Work respectfully, share information needed for safe practice, use clear handovers, support constructive feedback, and raise concerns appropriately.
With students, volunteers, and visitors
Model professional expectations, support safe participation, and speak up if conduct, supervision, or boundaries are unclear or unsafe.
Professional boundaries
Clear roles
Boundaries protect children and staff
Professional boundaries help staff use their role safely and fairly. They reduce confusion, protect privacy, prevent favouritism, and help children and families know what to expect from NERPSA staff.
Boundary concerns can include personal messaging, social media contact, private arrangements, sharing too much personal information, special treatment, secrecy, gifts, favours, unnecessary physical contact, or communication outside approved service pathways.
If a boundary feels unclear, pause and ask
Staff should seek guidance before a situation becomes unsafe, misunderstood, secretive, unfair, or inconsistent with NERPSA expectations.
Private information
Protect confidentiality
Staff must protect children’s, families’, and colleagues’ personal information. Information should only be shared where there is a legitimate service, safety, legal, or organisational reason.
Physical contact
Keep contact appropriate
Physical contact with children must be respectful, nurturing, developmentally suitable, child safe, and connected to the child’s safety, wellbeing, learning, or care needs.
Boundary risks to notice early
Private communication
Personal messaging, social media contact, private phone contact, or communication outside approved NERPSA pathways can create safety, privacy, and boundary risks.
Gifts, favours, and special treatment
Gifts, favours, private arrangements, or special treatment can create confusion, favouritism, secrecy, unfairness, or grooming concerns.
Physical interaction
Physical contact must be appropriate to the child’s needs, age, communication, comfort, dignity, safety, and professional context.
Confidentiality
Private information about children, families, colleagues, incidents, concerns, or service matters must not be discussed casually or shared without authority.
Fitness for work
Fitness for work
Staff must be fit to work safely with children
Staff must not educate or care for children while affected by alcohol, drugs, medication, illness, fatigue, or any substance or condition that may impair their ability to supervise, respond, communicate, make decisions, or perform their role safely.
Smoking, vaping, alcohol, and illicit drugs must not be used on the service premises while children are being educated and cared for.
Staff must follow NERPSA procedures if medication, illness, fatigue, or a health issue may affect their ability to safely perform their role.
Speak up early
If you are not fit to safely perform your role
Tell the appropriate leader, follow lawful and reasonable directions, and do not continue work if your judgement, supervision, communication, or safety may be impaired.
If you are concerned about someone’s conduct
Conduct concerns
If something does not feel right, speak up
Staff should speak up if they see, hear, or become aware of conduct that may affect a child’s safety, dignity, rights, privacy, or wellbeing, or that is inconsistent with NERPSA’s Code of Conduct.
Concerns may include:
- humiliating, frightening, threatening, isolating, shaming, degrading, or intimidating a child;
- rough handling, unsafe physical contact, inappropriate discipline, or unreasonable correction;
- using a personal device to take, store, send, or discuss children’s images, videos, records, or information;
- secretive, private, or inappropriate communication with a child or family;
- creating situations to be alone with a child without a clear professional reason;
- sharing confidential information without authority;
- ignoring concerns, disclosures, suspected harm, abuse, family violence, or unsafe adult behaviour;
- bullying, harassment, discrimination, racism, victimisation, or disrespectful workplace behaviour;
- any conduct that may need to be managed through NERPSA’s child safety, complaints, performance, disciplinary, or reportable conduct pathways.
Professional judgement
Think before acting
Use the “Would I be comfortable explaining this?” test
If a decision, message, conversation, photo, action, favour, relationship, or interaction would be difficult to explain to a child’s family, a colleague, the service leader, NERPSA, or a regulator, pause and seek guidance before continuing.
Professional judgement is about being reflective, transparent, child-focused, and willing to ask before something becomes unsafe, unclear, or inconsistent with NERPSA expectations.
NERPSA policies connected to this section
Policy connection
Policies that support professional conduct
Key connected policies include Code of Conduct, Child Safe Environment and Wellbeing, Interactions with Children, Privacy and Confidentiality, Compliments and Complaints, Supervision of Children, Safe Use of Digital Technologies and Online Environments, Staffing, and Participation of Volunteers and Students.
These policies support safe decisions about conduct, communication, boundaries, privacy, supervision, child safety, complaints, students, volunteers, visitors, digital technology, and professional accountability.
Useful resources
NERPSA Interactions with Children
Current NERPSA policy for respectful and safe interactions with children.
Open policyNERPSA Child Safe Environment
Current NERPSA child safe environment and wellbeing policy.
Open policy
Required induction activity
Reflect on professional conduct
Think of one behaviour that supports child safety, trust, respectful relationships, and professional boundaries. Then think of one behaviour that would be inconsistent with the Code of Conduct.
Make sure you know how to raise a concern if you observed conduct that was not appropriate.
Optional extension activities
- Consider a situation involving personal messaging, social media contact, gifts, physical contact, private arrangements, confidentiality, favouritism, rough handling, disrespectful language, or concerning adult behaviour. Think about what would make the situation unsafe or unclear, and who you would speak with before it escalated.
- Use the “would I be comfortable explaining this?” test. Choose a hypothetical action, message, photo, favour, relationship, physical interaction, or decision. Think about whether you could clearly explain it to a child’s family, your service leader, NERPSA, or a regulator.
Professional conduct protects trust
Clear conduct, safe boundaries, respectful communication, confidentiality, transparency, and early reporting help protect children, families, staff, and NERPSA’s child safe culture.