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Information sharing and how to access Child Link

Early childhood services may opt in for early access to Child Link, a key enabler of the information sharing reforms. Learn how the reforms can help children thrive.

Two kindergarten children in colourful rain jackets are smiling at the camera and standing in a playground.

The information sharing reforms remove barriers and make it easier for early childhood professionals to access information across the entire service system.

The reforms consist of 3 complementary parts:

  • the Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS)
  • the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS) and
  • Child Link.

Early childhood professionals can use CISS and FVISS to share vital knowledge to promote children’s wellbeing or safety, or manage and assess the risk of family violence. For example, services can share information when a child transitions to primary school.

This builds on early childhood professionals’ existing practice of sharing information to manage risks to children and encourages collaboration with other services.

Child Link is a key enabler of the information sharing reforms. It shows limited but critical information, including a child’s participation in early childhood services and schools.

Early childhood professionals with access to Child Link can view key information about each child in their service, helping them to:

  • make more informed decisions about the wellbeing, safety, and support needs of a child in their school or service
  • better identify risks and vulnerabilities and provide the necessary support to prevent any escalation of harm
  • encourage cross-service collaboration to facilitate more holistic support around a child
  • provide support earlier by linking together information from across schools and services
  • facilitate smoother transitions between early childhood and education services by responding to gaps in participation.

The department began a pilot of Child Link with a small group of schools and services in 2022. We then expanded this to a small group of schools and services in April 2023, to test the processes for training and gaining access to the system for the early childhood sector.

All services that deliver a Victorian Government-funded kindergarten program will have the opportunity to access Child Link by December 2024, as part of a planned roll-out approach.

We are inviting early childhood services that wish to access Child Link in early 2024 to complete this early access expression of interest form by Friday 8 December 2023.

This early access will give you an opportunity to provide feedback about Child Link and influence how the early childhood sector engages with it. To support you, we will provide:

  • targeted training sessions
  • a suite of resources
  • specialised support from a dedicated enquiry line.

Early childhood teachers in services delivering funded kindergarten programs are eligible to become authorised Child Link Users.

To become a Child Link User, all teachers must first complete a 2.5-hour Information Sharing and Child Link training session. Funding is available to support early childhood teachers to attend training.

We will provide more information about training requirements when we respond to your expression of interest.

Find out more

For further information about Child Link, refer to Child Link.

For further enquiries, contact:

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