For Australian childcare operators

Childcare compliance research, with citations.

Ask a question — WIDEN Law retrieves the relevant sections of the National Quality Framework, the Education and Care Services National Law, and the National Regulations, and summarises what they say with inline citations to the source.

No card required. Extended to 60 days free if you submit 5+ feedback ratings in month 1.

Childcare compliance is hard because the source material is everywhere.

The National Quality Framework, two acts, hundreds of regulations, ACECQA guidance, state regulator policies — finding the specific section that answers your specific question takes 20 minutes when it shouldn't take 20 seconds.

You search ACECQA and end up with 30 PDFs

Each one is technically right; none of them answer your actual question directly.

You ask a generic AI and get hallucinated regulation numbers

ChatGPT will invent a Regulation 76(3)(b) that sounds plausible and isn't real. Not a defence in front of a regulator.

You pay a compliance consultant $1,500 for a 4-week turnaround

For a question that should take a quick check against the right section. Not viable for routine questions.

You guess, and find out you guessed wrong at the next assessment

By which point a Notice of Practice and a Compliance Direction are already on the way.

How it works

A research assistant — not an answer engine and not a compliance certifier. It surfaces what authoritative sources say. Your compliance lead applies them.

1

Ask in plain English

e.g. What are the educator-to-child ratios for children under 24 months in an outdoor area?

2

Retrieves the right sections

Searches an indexed corpus of the NQF, National Law, National Regulations, and ACECQA materials — returns the top sections that actually address the question.

3

Summarises with inline citations

Every claim is footnoted to the section it came from. Source links open the original DHA / ACECQA / AustLII page. If the corpus doesn't answer, it says so — no fabrication.

What a real answer looks like

Inline footnotes, source links, and an explicit refusal-to-answer when the corpus doesn't have the section.

Example query — Centre plan, Sonnet 4.6, ~3 seconds
What documents must a service keep for each child enrolled?
Under the National Regulations, each enrolled child requires an enrolment record with prescribed details [1], an authorisation for collection by other persons [1], evidence of immunisation status [2], and where applicable a medical conditions risk minimisation plan [3].

The retrieved sources address the categories above but do not directly address record-retention duration. For retention periods, verify against the relevant state regulator's guidance.
Sources retrieved
[1] Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 — Regulation 160 (Child enrolment record). austlii.edu.au
[2] National Regulations — Regulation 162 (Health information to be kept). austlii.edu.au
[3] National Regulations — Regulation 90 (Medical conditions policy). austlii.edu.au

Beyond Q&A — review your own documents and premises photos

On the Centre and Group plans, upload a policy, procedure, or premises photo. WIDEN Law compares it against the NQF and surfaces gaps — with the same citation-required discipline.

📄

Policy / QIP gap analysis

Upload a PDF or DOCX. Get back what the document covers well, what's missing, and questions to raise with your compliance lead.

📷

Premises photo review

Upload a photo of a room, outdoor area, or equipment. Quality Area 3-focused observations with citations.

🔒

Encrypted · ephemeral · children-safe

Files encrypted at rest, auto-deleted after 30 days. Photos with children visible are automatically refused — Privacy Act / state regulator landmines we don't go near.

Pricing

Three tiers. 30-day free trial, extended to 60 days if you submit 5+ feedback ratings in month 1. Cancel anytime.

Starter

A$79
per month
100 text queries/mo
Inline citations
Sonnet 4.6 model
Details

Group

A$399
per month
2,000 text queries/mo
Unlimited Opus
20 doc + 15 photo reviews
Details

Annual billing available at 2 months free — see pricing page for the toggle.

Common questions

Is this legal advice?

No. WIDEN Law is a research assistant. It surfaces what the authoritative sources say, with citations. It does not interpret those sources for your specific facts, does not certify compliance, and is not a substitute for professional legal or compliance advice. Your compliance lead remains responsible for interpretation and decisions.

What's in the corpus?

National Quality Framework, the National Quality Standard's 7 Quality Areas, the Education and Care Services National Law (Vic Act 2010, adopted by all states), the Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011, and ACECQA guidance materials. State-specific regulator content is being added progressively.

How does it avoid hallucinating regulation numbers?

Every answer is generated against retrieved chunks from the corpus, with explicit instructions to cite [n] inline after every substantive claim and to refuse when the retrieved sources don't directly answer. If you see a citation in the output, the source page is linked underneath — clickable verification, every time.

What happens to documents and photos I upload?

Files are AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest the moment they reach the server, processed once to produce your analysis, and automatically deleted from disk after 30 days. The analysis output and metadata (filename, hash, what citations were used) are kept as an audit record. The encryption key is in environment configuration separate from the database. See the privacy policy for the full detail.

What about photos that contain children?

Every uploaded photo passes through a conservative classifier before any compliance analysis runs. If it detects any children's faces, bodies, or identifying features (including from behind or at distance), the upload is automatically refused. The Privacy Act and state regulator exposure of processing identifiable children's images is not worth it for either of us. Take the photo without children in frame.

Who built this?

Keshab Chapagain — Registered Migration Agent (MARN 1576536), operating Dynamic Consultancy Pty Ltd (ABN 19 167 039 250). WIDEN Law is one of three WIDEN products, alongside WIDEN AI (practice management for migration agents) and SponsorTalent (employer-sponsorship marketplace).

What about other regulated industries — aged care, RTOs, healthcare?

The platform is built to be extended to other regulated domains, but the corpus and prompts are currently childcare-specific. Once we have meaningful childcare adoption and feedback that says the model works, we'll extend domain by domain — with a vertical expert in the loop for each one. Don't sign up expecting aged care answers today.

Free guides for childcare operators

Plain-English research summaries on the parts of the NQF that come up most often. Free to read, no sign-up.

Educator to child ratios in Australia

National ratios under Regulations 123 and 124, working-directly-with-children rule, jurisdictional variations.

NQS Quality Areas explained

All 7 Quality Areas with assessor focus areas and what evidence A&R visits typically look for.

QIP guide — what to include & review cadence

Reg 55 / 56 requirements, common gaps that drop services to Working Towards, the review cycle that works.

Preparing for an Assessment & Rating visit

Pre-visit timeline, what assessors review, what they observe, and the 6-week preparation plan that works.

The National Quality Framework explained

How the Law, Regulations, NQS, and ratings system fit together. Provider, service, and supervisor approvals.

Latest from the blog

Practical articles on childcare compliance, tools, and the day-to-day of running a regulated ECEC service.

View all articles →

MARA-registeredKeshab Chapagain
MARN 1576536
Australian entityDynamic Consultancy Pty Ltd
ABN 19 167 039 250
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