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#disability support sector bas been buried in compliance, to the extent that it feels almost the opposite of quality. Tech has a role to play and so I was surprised by this stat from #ELC2025 NDS Leaders Conference this week. There's only a 7% year-on-year increase in the #NDIS support providers appetite to increase technology adoption. Compare this with government reports that over two thirds of the Australian workforce want more training in tech and AI and businesses reported a 5% adoption uptick in the last quarter alone. This lack of tech adoption is despite funding tightening and workforce churn and costs intensifying. It feels addressable with small, guided steps from National Disability Services and other leaders who've done it like Mark Nevin, Nikki Grech, Christina Wiremu-Brook and Fred Cicchini on where to start with tech and AI. Guidance on safe, high impact, confidence and competence building use of tech. When Associate Commissioner Belinda Wade says providers must "take all reasonable steps to eliminate violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation" - what infrastructure exists to enable that at scale? Manual checking of worker credentials across multiple registers while managing 50% turnover isn't reasonable. It's hoping things don't fall through cracks. Let technology handle the back office. Continuous credential monitoring. Register checking. Compliance documentation. Low risk. High impact. Cost reduction. Leaders are already taking those savings and putting them where the evidence shows they matter - mentoring frontline workers on active support. Creating the relationships, skills and conditions for quality care. That's where retention happens. That's where incidents decrease. That's where people actually want to stay and do this important work.

So often we get so deep in our customers problem space that we miss the perspectives of other people crucial to systems working. Parents often say to me me, surely all childcare centres and schools continuously monitor suitability checks? I have to say, no, and goverment systems don't help them. Oho does of course, but often parents are missing fundamental info like "what checks do my child's educators and carers actually need?" to start this conversation. If you're wanting to to know the monitoring stance your provider has on worker suitabilty, you can use this tool (in comments) to know what checks they need for almost any role in any state. You can always recommend they talk to Oho if they can't tell you who, where and how quickly they would find out if a worker check was revoked.

Choosing childcare is one of the highest stakes decisions we make as parents. New research from the University of the Sunshine Coast, reported in The Conversation Australia + NZ found parents rank safety and safeguarding second only to location when choosing a service. They don't have much to go on though. A rating, a tour, maybe a friends recommendation. What they can't see but need to is how supervision holds up on a busy afternoon, staff turnover, whether parent or educator concerns have been raised and how they are dealt with. At Oho, we're seeing parents starting to raise their voices in child safety advocacy. You can see parents pushing up via Daniel Morcombe Foundation Inc. campaign for an alleged national childcare abuse register. You can see it in this survey. I see it at drop off and the dwindling numbers of kids whose parents aren't feeling confident to send them anymore. Transparency shouldn't be something parents have to dig for. It should be built fairly into the system. How much is it parents job vs employers vs government? It's an urgent and shared problem, but clarity on who owns what is missing. Oho works with some amazing organisations who back that transparency in their workforce suitability so parents and kids can feel safe with their choices.

Free calculators, checklists and compliance maps built for HR, ops and risk leaders across the care sector. If you're in the care sector, these are for you.

ROI calculators. Compliance navigators. Audit checklists. Built specifically for Australian care providers. Free to use.

Requirements change by role, sector and state, so how do you know which checks each role needs? By trawling through regulator information and legislation. But we've done it for you.