10th September 2026
Author: Maree DeGeorge
Since launching across the Victorian basketball community in September 2025, PlaySafe has helped associations and clubs spend less time on manual processes and more time supporting safe basketball environments. Basketball Victoria led the way as the first sport in Australia to introduce this type of automated child-safeguarding tool, and now an optional new service is here.
Melbourne, VICTORIA – Child safeguarding is one of the most important responsibilities we share across Victorian basketball, but keeping on top of the required checks can involve a significant amount of time and administration.
For associations and clubs, this has traditionally meant manually checking Working with Children Check (WWCC) and Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) registrations, updating spreadsheets, monitoring expiry dates and following up with coaches, team managers and staff and volunteers.
With hundreds of clubs and thousands of volunteers involved in our game, that workload can quickly add up, and much of it is carried by busy parents already giving a significant amount of their time to basketball.
Basketball Victoria introduced PlaySafe across the Victorian basketball community to help make this process simpler, more consistent and less manual.
Developed through a partnership between PlayHQ and Oho, PlaySafe provides associations and clubs with a practical tool to support their existing child-safeguarding and compliance processes.
What is PlaySafe?
PlaySafe is an automated child-safeguarding solution built into PlayHQ.
It verifies and monitors Working with Children Checks and Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) registrations for coaches and team managers.
When a coach or team manager registers through PlayHQ, they enter their WWCC or VIT details as part of the registration process. PlaySafe then checks those details through Oho against the relevant government database.
Rather than being checked once and recorded in a spreadsheet or separate filing system, checks are monitored on an ongoing basis. Weekly monitoring helps identify if a check has expired, been suspended or revoked, allowing the appropriate people to act quickly.
Participants are also notified automatically if their information is incorrect or needs to be updated.
Put simply, PlaySafe replaces a manual snapshot in time with an ongoing process that is easier for organisations to see and manage.
Less paperwork and better visibility
PlaySafe is designed to make the administrative side of child safeguarding easier to manage.
Authorised administrators can view the Child Safety status of relevant participants through a central PlaySafe dashboard. This makes it easier to see which checks are valid, in progress, expiring soon, expired or invalid and quickly identify where follow-up may be required.
It means less time spent:
- - manually checking individual cards;
- - storing physical copies of cards in most circumstances;
- - maintaining separate spreadsheets and records;
- - monitoring expiry dates;
- - following up participants for missing or incorrect information; and
- - repeatedly completing the same administrative checks.
Expiring and expired checks appear as tasks for administrators, while participants receive an email explaining what they need to correct or update.
For volunteers and administrators, that means less chasing and fewer spreadsheets, while giving organisations clearer oversight and a more efficient way to track their WWCC and VIT compliance.
Responsibility remains with each organisation
While PlaySafe makes verification and monitoring easier, it is a support tool and does not replace an organisation’s child-safeguarding responsibilities. Basketball Victoria provides PlaySafe to help associations, clubs and other basketball organisations manage their compliance more efficiently. It does not manage checks on an organisation’s behalf or assume any of that organisation’s legal or compliance obligations.
Responsibility for child safeguarding - including managing all required checks, reviewing information, following up issues and meeting all legal and regulatory requirements - remains entirely with each association, club or organisation.
PlaySafe does not change or transfer that responsibility. It simply provides a clearer, less manual way for organisations to manage the work they are already required to do.
PlaySafe continues to improve
Since PlaySafe launched across the Victorian basketball community in September 2025, PlayHQ, Basketball Victoria and Oho have continued to work together to make the system easier for participants and administrators to use.
Recent improvements to the Child Safety dashboard include more flexible filtering and colour-coded statuses, making it quicker to scan the list and spot anything requiring attention.
Other updates include:
- - separate first, middle and last-name fields for WWCC records;
- - a Check Method column showing whether a check was completed automatically through Oho or manually overridden by an authorised administrator;
- - a dashboard count based on unique participants rather than the number of registrations;
- - a Name Mismatch status to identify possible differences between a participant’s name and the name recorded on their check; and
- - clearer error messages showing participants and administrators what needs to be corrected.
The dashboard continues to show individual registrations, allowing administrators to see the competitions and roles connected to each participant.
Together, these improvements make the system quicker to understand and easier to act on, particularly for volunteers managing large numbers of registrations.
Introducing PlaySafe Back Office
Basketball Victoria currently provides PlaySafe verification and monitoring for coaches and team managers registered through PlayHQ. However, they are not the only people who may hold positions of trust within a basketball organisation.
Committee members, employees and other volunteers are also an important part of our clubs and associations, but they may sit outside the usual team-registration process.
PlaySafe Back Office is a new, optional service that will extend verification and monitoring to these groups, helping organisations manage more of their checks through one central system.
Organisations can choose from two annual options:
- PlaySafe Back Office Lite: $150 plus GST for up to 50 people; or
- PlaySafe Back Office Full: $300 plus GST for 51 people or more.
There is no additional per-person charge within the selected option.
“PlaySafe was introduced to give our associations and clubs a simpler, more reliable way to support their child-safeguarding compliance, while reducing the manual workload often carried by volunteers,” Basketball Victoria Chief Operating Officer Ben Pahl said.
“PlaySafe - Back Office is the next step, extending that support to committee members, staff and volunteers who sit outside team registrations. While it is optional, we strongly encourage organisations to consider it as a practical way to improve visibility, reduce administration and strengthen their existing safeguarding processes.”
Importantly, joining Back Office does not transfer an organisation’s responsibilities to Basketball Victoria, PlayHQ or Oho. Each participating organisation remains responsible for managing all its checks and meeting its own child-safeguarding, legal and compliance obligations.
Back Office simply provides a more efficient and visible way to support that important work.
Supporting safer basketball environments
PlaySafe was introduced because Basketball Victoria wanted to give associations and clubs a better way to manage the administrative processes that support child safeguarding.
Behind every registration, status and automated check is a shared commitment to keeping children and young people safe.
By reducing paperwork, providing clearer information and helping organisations identify issues earlier, PlaySafe gives volunteers and administrators more time to focus on supporting their clubs, members and basketball communities.
With further improvements, new eligibility controls and the optional PlaySafe Back Office service, PlaySafe will continue to provide practical support to associations and clubs as they meet their responsibilities and help build safer basketball environments across Victoria.
-ENDS-
