Kym West
9 July
Basketball Victoria has become the first major sporting organisation in Australia to implement PlaySafe, a groundbreaking new technology aimed at strengthening child safety and easing the burden on volunteers.
The system developed through an exclusive partnership between PlayHQ, Australia’s leading sports registration platform, and Oho, the nation’s first dedicated credential verification service automates the management of Working With Children Checks (WWCCs) across the country.
PlaySafe is seamlessly integrated into PlayHQ’s platform and is designed to address long-standing administrative challenges in community sport, including the complexity of managing WWCCs across hundreds of clubs and thousands of volunteers.
Basketball Victoria’s Chief Operating Officer Ben Pahl said the move was not only a logical step forward but a vital one.
“Once people know PlaySafe exists, the question becomes: ‘When are we starting to use it?’,” Pahl said. “It’s a no-brainer. This takes an enormous pressure off volunteers while strengthening the safeguards around our game.”
Basketball Victoria, which oversees over 140 associations and nearly 500 clubs, accounts for more than 50% of basketball participation nationwide, with over 220,000 registered players and volunteers. In most cases, WWCC compliance has been manually tracked by club volunteers often busy parents juggling multiple responsibilities.
“It requires constant chasing just to collect WWCC numbers let alone to monitor expiry dates or check if cards have been revoked,” Pahl explained. “This puts a huge burden on volunteers, and without a centralised system, it also increases the risk of things falling through the cracks.”
PlaySafe solves this by allowing individuals to enter their WWCC details directly into their PlayHQ profile. Oho then automatically verifies and monitors these credentials in real time, conducting regular checks against state and territory databases. If a WWCC is revoked or expires, relevant personnel including Basketball Victoria’s Integrity Department are immediately notified.
Tim MacKinnon, CEO of PlayHQ, said the integration was a major leap forward for the sports sector.
“PlaySafe automates and unifies a fragmented manual process, effectively creating for the first time a national registry of the state-based WWCC data,” MacKinnon said. “This solution brings peace of mind to parents, reduces compliance gaps for governing bodies, and gives volunteers more time to focus on the club and its members, rather than chasing paperwork.”
Liv Whitty, CEO of Oho, said the partnership exemplified how technology can fill critical safety gaps in community settings.
“The partnership between PlayHQ and Oho proves that where the gap exists, technology can step in,” Whitty said. “Community sport runs on trust, and this partnership means trust is backed by simple, reliable systems that make it safer for everyone.”
Previously, when individuals volunteered at multiple clubs, notifications of expired or revoked WWCCs were often sent only to the primary organisation listed on their application. This created significant risks for other clubs unknowingly working with non-compliant volunteers. With PlaySafe, that problem is eliminated.
“Without a tool like this, we had no central way to know if someone’s card had been revoked,” Pahl said. “Now, if that happens, we’re notified immediately and can make sure no one works with children without a valid card.”
PlaySafe will be available to our basketball community in PlayHQ soon and Basketball Victoria is strongly encouraging all affiliated clubs and associations to embrace it.
“We’re always asking ourselves, ‘Are we doing everything we can to keep the sport safe?’ Once you know this is possible you have to do it,” Pahl said.
With the implementation of PlaySafe, Basketball Victoria is setting a new national benchmark for child safety in community sport offering peace of mind for families and building a stronger, safer future for basketball.
For more information about PlayHQ go to our digital support page, or if you have any questions, please submit a support request (found on this page).
