As must people will be aware, we are very dedicated parkrun and junior parkrun volunteers. No matter where we are in the world we will volunteer if we can.

In fact we don’t really go somewhere that doesn’t have parkrun, as that is part of our DNA.

In Australia all volunteers at junior parkrun are required to have a Working With Children Card (WWCC). We went through the process in 2024.

This is comparable to the DBS that UK junior RDs have to hold, however, in Australia, each and every volunteer has to be checked and then, “double however”, you have to get one for each State and Territory!

Therefore we are OK to volunteer at the 2 events in Queensland but not the 2 in Victoria or the 1 in South Australia.

Whilst looking at the criteria for a WWCC in Victoria, we found a section in the Exemptions, that gave us some optimism.

As we have a check from our “home State” we meet paragraph 1 criteria and therefore should be able to volunteer on 30 occasions in any one year in the State of Victoria.

Sadly and frustratingly, that isn’t how parkrun Australia has chosen to operate.

They have said that they “do not look at the exemptions per state, as they differ from state to state. So for parkrun, in order to create one policy that would work across the whole country, we looked at the strictest rules across each of the states, and used these to form the parkrun safeguarding policy that is applicable nationally. One set of rules, instead of eight.”

Under normal circumstances I would consider this to be fair, however, currently there are only 5 junior events in Australia, spread over only 3 of the States (Queensland, Victoria and South Australia). It has been this way for at least the last 18 months.

A very common reason for junior cancellations in Australia is insufficient volunteers with the required WWCC!

It is very frustrating that we are allowed to volunteer in the State of Victoria as far as the state is concerned, but aren’t allowed to as far as parkrun Australia is concerned. Where is the logic?