Know the drill: Emergency and evacuation procedures

Emergency and evacuation procedures are critical to ensuring the safety of children at early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres in the case of an emergency.

Approved providers are reminded that services are expected by the ESB to rehearse one invacuation and one evacuation procedure every three months. Further information can be found here.

Please note, service closure dates are not included within the three-month timeframe. For example, when a public holiday/s occurs, this period is added on to give services a full three months of being operational to complete both their invacuation and evacuation rehearsals.

Ideally invacuation and evacuation rehearsals are run on days with strong attendance, to ensure as many staff and children as possible experience a rehearsal. This helps to reduce stress or confusion in the case of a genuine emergency and provides staff with the ability to evaluate practice and processes.

The importance of a risk assessment

A risk assessment is also a key component of having robust emergency and evacuation procedures in place as it helps identify potential emergencies that are relevant to a service.

Under the National Regulations 97(2)(a)(b), a service must review its potential emergencies risk assessment every 12 months and as soon as practicable after becoming aware of any circumstance that may affect the safe evacuation of children from the service.

For further information about the requirements of Regulation 97, click here: National Regulations and ACECQA Guidelines.

If you have any questions about emergency and evacuation procedures or risk assessments, please contact the ESB on 1800 882 413.