Working With Children Check (NSW)
A Working With Children Check (WWC) is the clearance required to do child-related work in New South Wales. It is administered by the Office of the Children's Guardian (OCG). Oho recognises it as a New South Wales Working With Children Check and can confirm it against the official register.
Who needs it
Anyone in child-related work in NSW. The check distinguishes paid employees from volunteers, and the identifier carries an E suffix for an employee or a V suffix for a volunteer.
What Oho needs
The card or application number printed on the WWC card and the holder's name — and, importantly, the holder's date of birth. NSW requires the date of birth to verify.
How Oho verifies it
Oho submits the check to the OCG and returns a result within hours rather than seconds. NSW also establishes an automatic employer linkage: verifying through Oho links your organisation to the worker in the OCG system.
Once verified, Oho re-checks it on the schedule you set up in the Verification Sources tab. In addition, because of the employer linkage, the OCG sends direct notifications when a worker's status changes — so NSW is the one state that can alert you to a change that happens even between routine checks. Renewals flow through automatically.
NSW distinguishes between a card that is "not found" and one that is "not acceptable". A not-found result usually means the details did not match; a not-acceptable result is an active problem with the clearance.
Reading the result
Every check resolves to one of a few outcomes, shown with a colour so it's easy to scan:
| Outcome | Colour | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| MAY_ENGAGE | Green | Valid and current — the person is cleared for the work. |
| MAY_NOT_ENGAGE | Red | Not valid — for example expired, suspended, cancelled, or no matching record. |
| REVIEW_REQUIRED | Yellow | Valid but carries conditions worth a person reviewing before relying on it. |
| IN_PROGRESS | Grey | Still being checked — some registers take a little longer to respond. |
| ERROR | Grey | The register couldn't be reached; Oho will try again. |
Oho keeps watching afterwards and updates the outcome automatically if the status changes, and the worker's profile keeps a history of every check.