Module 8 of 85–7 minutes

Reporting, Incidents and Ongoing Safety

Reporting hazards, injuries, near misses and early symptoms in a service, escalating concerns, keeping safety improving, and what this training does and does not do.

Last reviewed September 2026 · Part of Manual Handling Training for Childcare and Early Childhood Educators

Key learning points

Know what to report in a service and why near misses matter
Recognise early symptoms and report them before they become injuries
Escalate concerns through room leaders, directors and health and safety representatives
Understand the role of induction, refresher and workplace-specific training
Summarise the key principles of the course and its limits

What to report

Hazards — anything that could cause harm, before it does: a wobbling change table step, a stiff buggy wheel, a cot pushed into a corner
Injuries and discomfort, including early symptoms — an aching lower back at the end of the babies room shift, a sore wrist, a knee that hurts on hard floors
Near misses — the child who nearly slipped from your arms, the buggy that nearly rolled, the stack of stretcher beds that toppled and missed
Faulty, missing or unsuitable equipment, including a room with no adult chair or no step for the change table
Changes in a child's needs that change how they are handled — a child recovering from surgery, a child with additional needs who has grown, a new child who resists handling
Environments that force poor postures — shelving, cot placement, a hall floor with nowhere to sit
Routines or staffing that make the safe method impossible — one educator doing every nappy change, an excursion route with steps

Early symptoms are the cheapest warning you will get

Musculoskeletal injuries in educators rarely arrive in one moment. They announce themselves for weeks as an ache that eases over the weekend and returns by Tuesday. Reporting that ache is not weakness or a complaint — it lets the room be changed while the fix is a stool and a cot height, not months off work. A near miss does the same job for free.

Escalating concerns

Raise it with your room leader or the nominated supervisor first where practical
Use your service's hazard or incident form or system, not only a mention in passing — a written report is what gets equipment bought
Include what happened, where, when, who was involved, what the child's situation was and what would have prevented it
If nothing changes, escalate to the director, the approved provider or the health and safety representative under your service's process
Family day care educators raise concerns with their scheme co-ordinator; OSHC staff with their co-ordinator and, where relevant, the school
Serious injuries and certain incidents also have to be notified to the WHS regulator and, where a child is involved, to the regulatory authority — your director handles this, but tell them promptly

Keeping safety current

Induction should include the service's own equipment — cots, change tables, buggies — not just policies
Refresher training keeps knowledge current as rooms, children and equipment change
Risk assessments should be reviewed when a room is re-set, a child's needs change, or an educator becomes pregnant or returns from injury
Incident and symptom reports should drive purchases and layout changes, not blame
Your observations from the floor are part of the service's continuous improvement

Practical scenario

Scenario: the sore wrist

After two weeks as the main educator in the babies room, you notice your right wrist aches every evening and clicks when you lift. It is fine by Monday morning and you do not want to look as if you cannot cope.

What should you do?

Reveal the explanation

Report it now, in writing, using your service's process. A wrist that recovers over the weekend and returns each week is an early symptom of a repetitive strain, and it is much easier to address at this stage. The response should be about the task, not about you: how many lifts you are doing compared with colleagues, whether the cots and change surface are at the right height, whether you are lifting infants under the arms with a bent wrist, and whether the rotation between rooms needs to change. See your doctor if it persists.

Practical scenario

Scenario: the near miss nobody wrote down

A stack of ten stretcher beds leaning against the sleep room wall slid and fell across the doorway just after the last child had walked through. Nobody was hurt, so the educators stood them back up and carried on.

Why does this need reporting, and what should happen?

Reveal the explanation

Because next time a child, or the educator carrying the stack, will be in the doorway. A near miss with no injury is the service's best chance to fix the storage before an incident it has to notify. Report it, and ask for a stretcher bed trolley or rack so the beds are never stacked loose against a wall, and for a limit on how many are carried at once.

Key takeaways

The central principles of this course

Ask whether the lift is needed at all — let children walk, climb and step up
Identify the risk factors in a routine before you start it, and count them
Do not rely on technique alone — change the cot height, the table, the storage, the routine
Get close, hold securely, bring the child to your chest, and never lift two at once
Use adult chairs and stools; vary your floor posture; get up before you pick up
Set up equipment before you need it and check it before you use it
Stop when a lift goes wrong; lower, reassess and get help
Tell your director early if you are pregnant, injured or in pain
Report hazards, near misses, early symptoms and equipment faults in writing

What this training is, and is not

This is non-accredited online workplace training that issues a Certificate of Completion. It gives you the theory of manual handling in early childhood education and care. It does not replace your service's induction, its equipment-specific instruction, its supervision or its procedures, and it is not approved or required by ACECQA, a regulatory authority or a WHS regulator. It is not a nationally recognised unit and does not provide a Statement of Attainment.

Knowledge check

These questions are for your own learning. They are not part of the final assessment.

1. Why should a near miss — such as a buggy that nearly rolled — be reported even though nobody was hurt?

2. Your lower back aches every evening after the babies room shift but is fine after the weekend. What is the appropriate action?

3. Which statement about this online training is correct?