Training on Child Safeguarding Standards

You have written child safeguarding standards and you ask what comes next. The document sits in a binder, and the practice employs a receptionist, a trainee and two therapists. Do they have to be trained on the standards? How do you organize it without buying a course? And what should you record, so that after an inspection you are not searching for proof?

The Act says less about this than you might expect. That is good news, because it leaves you freedom. It is bad news, because you must decide how to prepare your team and describe it. Below we check what exactly follows from the law and what is good practice.

In brief

• The Act does not use the word "training". It requires the standards to set out the rules for preparing staff to apply them and the way this is documented (Article 22c(1)(5)).
• In the text of the Act we found no requirement for an external course, a certificate, or a set duration or frequency.
• An inspector may demand to see documents, so a record of the preparation carried out makes practical sense (Article 22x(4)).
• The scope of the preparation follows from elements you already have in the standards: relationships, intervention, notifications, responsible persons, documenting incidents.
• You assess the standards at least once every two years. That is a natural moment to repeat the team's preparation.

Must staff be trained on child safeguarding standards

The duty to introduce standards rests, among others, on organizers of medical activity attended or visited, or possibly visited, by minors (Article 22b of the Act on Counteracting Threats of Sexual Crime and Protecting Minors). The provisions on standards were added by the Act of 28 July 2023, and the deadline for introducing them passed on 15 August 2024. The text of the Act is in the Journal of Laws. Basic information about the document itself is in the article on child safeguarding standards at a physiotherapy practice.

What does the Act say about staff? Article 22c(1)(5) lists among the elements of the standards:

• the scope of competence of the person responsible for preparing staff to apply the standards,
• the rules for preparing that staff to apply them,
• the way this is documented.

Note the construction. The Act does not say "run an X-hour training". It says the document must describe who prepares the team, how, and how it is recorded. The form is yours, but it must be described and applied. If your standards say that every new employee reads the document in their first week, you have to do that.

Who counts as "staff"

The Act does not define the word. This is our suggestion, not a legal provision: in a small practice, assume the preparation covers everyone who has contact with minor patients, their parents or their records. Therapists, reception, trainees, volunteers, people on contracts. We cover trainees in the article on student placements at a practice. If you work alone, you still go through your own document: read it, record the date and the responsible person, which is you.

Scope of the training: what to tell reception and therapists

The simplest approach is to base the programme on what Article 22c requires of the content of the standards. Each point is a topic of conversation with the team:

Topic	Basis in the Act	What you discuss
Safe relationships	Art. 22c(1)(1)	Behaviour not allowed towards minors, rules on physical contact during therapy, the presence of a parent
Intervention	point 2	What to do when you notice signs of harm or learn about it
Notifications	point 3	Who notifies the family court or law enforcement, and by what procedure
Review of the standards	point 4	When the document is updated and who changes it
Informing parents	point 6	How parents and children learn about the standards
Responsible persons	point 7	Whom to report events that threaten a child to
Documenting incidents	point 8	How to record and store reports

Subsection 2 adds requirements for places where activity is carried out: relationships between minors, rules for using devices with internet access, protection from harmful content, and the rules of a support plan after harm is disclosed. If your waiting room has a tablet or wi-fi for patients, this block also belongs in the conversation.

Remember the short version. Article 22c(7) requires the standards to be published on the website and posted on the premises in a full version and a short version for minors. How to prepare it is described in the text on child safeguarding standards for children.

How to organize the preparation in a small practice

You do not need to buy a course to write the preparation rules into the standards. An example plan you can adapt:

1. Name the responsible person and write their competence into the standards. In a one-person practice this is usually the owner.
2. Hand out or show the full document and the short version. Everyone reads them before the meeting.
3. Gather the team for a short meeting. Adjust the length to the size of the team; the law does not set it.
4. Go through the table from the previous section using examples from the practice, not section numbers.
5. Ask each person whom they would report a worrying situation to. If the answers differ, the document needs clarifying.
6. Record the preparation on an attendance list and keep it with the standards.

Do not wait for the next round for new people. Add reading the standards to the list of start-up documents, which we cover in the article on onboarding at a physiotherapy practice. Before a new person starts work with children, you must also check them in the registers. The details are in the text on checking an employee in the offender register.

Documentation: a sample attendance list

The Act requires the standards to describe how the preparation of staff is documented. It does not impose a specific form. Below is a suggestion you can copy into your own document:

No.	Name	Role	Date	Version of the standards (date)	Person leading	Signature
1
2
3

Add one sentence under the table: "I confirm that I have read the child safeguarding standards in force at the practice in the version dated ..., I understand their content and I will apply them." A signature under such a sentence does not replace the conversation, but it shows that the conversation took place.

Remember personal data. A list with the names and roles of employees is employment documentation, so keep it where you keep personnel files.

Rules for responding to suspected harm to a child

This is the hardest part of the conversation, and it is where generalities creep in most easily. The Act requires the standards to include the rules and procedure of intervention when harm is suspected or information about it is held, the procedures and persons responsible for notifying a suspected offence and for notifying the family court, the persons receiving reports, and the way incidents are documented (Article 22c(1)(2), (3), (7) and (8)).

In training, work through three questions using a simple example, such as a child who says after a treatment that someone hits them at home:

• What does the person who heard this do, and what do they not do?
• Whom do they go to with a report at the practice?
• What do they write down and where is it kept?

Set the specific notification path (police, prosecutor, family court) in your own document with the help of a lawyer. In this article we did not check the provisions of criminal and civil procedure that set the duties to notify. On parental consent for treating children, see the article on paediatric physiotherapy and parental consent.

Training on the standards and GDPR training

It is a good idea to combine both topics in one meeting, but do not mix the documents. GDPR training has a different legal basis and a different record. We cover the rules for preparing the team on personal data in the article on GDPR training for practice staff. It is also worth planning to repeat the preparation at the review of the standards, which we describe in the text on evaluating child safeguarding standards.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to buy external training on child safeguarding standards?

In the text of the Act we found no such requirement. Article 22c(1)(5) requires the standards to describe the rules for preparing staff and how this is documented. You can run the preparation yourself. The Team for the Protection of Minors at the Minister of Justice prepares guidelines for drawing up the standards (Article 22s(4)(4)); we did not analyze their content.

How often must the training be repeated?

The Act does not give a frequency for preparing staff. It does say that the standards are assessed at least once every two years and the conclusions are recorded in writing (Article 22c(6)). It is sensible to repeat the preparation after a change in the standards and whenever a new person joins the team. That is our recommendation, not a legal provision.

Does a trainee or volunteer have to be trained?

The Act does not define staff, so there is no exception for trainees in it. If a trainee has contact with minor patients, including them in the preparation is the safer interpretation. Also remember the duties to check persons admitted to work with children (Article 21 of the Act).

Is there a penalty for not training staff?

We found no separate penalty in the Act for not preparing staff. Article 23b provides a penalty for failing to introduce the standards: a fine of up to PLN 250 or a reprimand, and on a repeat finding a fine of not less than PLN 1,000. The standards must, however, contain the rules for preparing staff, so that part of the document should be described and applied. Inspection of the Article 22b duty is carried out by, among others, the commune head (wójt), mayor, city president, starost and voivodeship marshal (Article 22x).

Is an attendance list enough as proof?

The Act does not specify a form. A list with the date, the version of the document and signatures is a simple way of recording that fits what you describe in the standards yourself. Whether it satisfies an inspector depends on what you wrote in the standards and whether you apply it. No one can guarantee the outcome of an inspection.

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Legal status as of: 2 November 2026

Legal basis: Act of 13 May 2016 on Counteracting Threats of Sexual Crime and Protecting Minors (consolidated text Journal of Laws 2026 item 110), Articles 21, 22b, 22c, 22s(4), 22x and 23b; Act of 28 July 2023 amending the Family and Guardianship Code and certain other acts (Journal of Laws 2023 item 1606), Articles 10 and 12 (deadline for introducing the standards). The Act was amended after the consolidated text was issued (Journal of Laws 2026 items 187 and 421); in those amendments we found no changes to Articles 22b-22c, 22s, 22x or 23b. We did not check: the guidelines of the Team for the Protection of Minors, the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Code of Civil Procedure on the duty to notify, the rules on personal data in personnel files, or how inspection bodies assess standards at professional practices.

Last reviewed: 2 November 2026

Child safeguarding standards are one of several areas of practice documentation. The others, such as the patient record, consents, GDPR and authorizations, are organized by the FizjoReady packages. The packages contain no child safeguarding documents, and documentation does not guarantee the outcome of an inspection. See FizjoReady packages

Related articles:
- Child safeguarding standards at a physiotherapy practice
- Child safeguarding standards for children
- Evaluating child safeguarding standards
- Offender register: how to check an employee