Police Check and Working With Children Check: How We Screen Nannies in Sydney

When you invite someone into your home to care for your children, “probably fine” isn't good enough. You want to know — really know — that the person reading bedtime stories, doing the school run and holding your baby has been properly checked.

At Nanny Nest, every nanny we place in Sydney holds both a valid Working With Children Check and a National Police Check. Not one or the other. Both. Here's what each one actually does, why the difference matters, and why we won't cut the corner.

What is a Working With Children Check?

The Working With Children Check (WWCC) is a NSW Government screening run by the Office of the Children's Guardian. It's a legal requirement for anyone in child-related work — including nannies — and it's built specifically around child safety.

A WWCC is more than a one-off look at someone's record. It:

• Reviews criminal history, including some spent convictions and juvenile records

• Considers pending charges and certain workplace misconduct findings

• Results in a clear outcome: either a clearance to work with children, or a bar

• Is continuously monitored for five years — if something serious happens after clearance, it can be revoked

That ongoing monitoring is what makes the WWCC so valuable, and it's why it's non-negotiable for every nanny we work with. If a nanny doesn't hold a valid clearance, they don't work with Nanny Nest. Full stop.

So why add a National Police Check?

Here's the part many families don't realise: a WWCC already includes a police check as part of its assessment — but the result you see is only “cleared” or “barred.” It doesn't show you the person's actual criminal history. And crucially, a WWCC only bars someone for a specific list of serious, mostly child-related offences.

That means a nanny can hold a perfectly valid WWCC clearance and still have other disclosable history on their record — things like theft, fraud, assault or serious driving offences — that the clearance simply doesn't bar them for.

When someone is alone in your home, handling your household, sometimes driving your children, those things matter. A National Police Check gives a fuller, transparent picture of a person's disclosable criminal history at the date it's issued — the offences a WWCC clearance would never reveal to you.

In short:

• The WWCC answers: “Is this person legally allowed to work with children, and are they being monitored?”

• The National Police Check answers: “What does this person's broader, disclosable record actually look like?”

You need both questions answered. One check tells you they're not barred from child work. The other helps you trust them in your home with everything else.

Why we won't rely on just one

It would be easier and cheaper for us to tick the WWCC box and move on — it's the legal minimum, after all. We don't, for one simple reason: the legal minimum and the standard a parent actually wants are not the same thing.

Doing both checks is part of how we hold a higher bar. A clear WWCC plus a clean, recent National Police Check, read together, gives us — and you — a far more complete picture than either could alone. It's the difference between “allowed” and “genuinely reassuring.”

This is one layer of our wider screening. Every Nanny Nest nanny is also reference-checked and interviewed in person, because paperwork tells you what someone hasn't done, not who they are. You can read more about what thorough screening looks like in our guide to what to look for in a background-checked nanny.

What this means for your family

When you work with us, you don't have to chase, verify or interpret any of this. Before a nanny is ever introduced to you, we've confirmed their WWCC clearance is current, sighted a recent National Police Check, checked references and met them ourselves. You see the people who have already passed — not a pile of applications to vet.

That's the whole point of a carefully screened, matched introduction: the trust is built in before the first hello.

A quick note for nannies

If you're a nanny applying to join us, yes — we'll ask for both a current Working With Children Check and a recent National Police Check. Great nannies tend to welcome this. It protects you as much as the family, and it's part of what lets us place you with lovely households who value professional, properly screened care.

Ready to find a nanny you can genuinely trust? Start your nanny search or book a quick call and we'll talk through exactly how we screen and match.

General information only; screening requirements can change — we keep ours current with the NSW Office of the Children's Guardian.

In short

• Every Nanny Nest nanny holds a valid Working With Children Check (legally required, continuously monitored)

• Plus a recent National Police Check (reveals broader disclosable history a WWCC clearance hides)

• A WWCC says “not barred from child work”; a police check shows “what the record actually contains”

• We do both, every time — alongside references and an in-person interview