Children First Training for Healthcare Staff: What It Covers and Who Needs It

Children First training is the short, mandatory e-learning module that teaches health and social care staff in Ireland how to recognise child abuse and neglect and what to do if they have a concern about a child's welfare. If you work for the HSE, a HSE-funded service, or most other organisations that come into contact with children in a healthcare setting, the answer to "do I need it" is almost always yes — and for a defined group of professionals, it isn't just good practice, it's a legal requirement.

What Children First training is and where it comes from

Children First is Ireland's national child safeguarding framework. It rests on two pillars: the Children First Act 2015, which places statutory obligations on specific professionals and on organisations that provide services to children, and the Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children (2017), which sets out non-statutory good-practice expectations for everyone else working with or around children. The Act was fully commenced in December 2017 and is overseen by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency.

The training module itself — usually titled "An Introduction to Children First" — exists to make sure staff understand both sides of that framework: what the law requires of them personally, and what good safeguarding practice looks like in their day-to-day role, whether or not they meet the legal threshold for mandated reporting.

Who has to complete it — and who counts as a "mandated person"

Two different questions get conflated here, so it's worth separating them.

First: is the training itself mandatory? For anyone employed by the HSE, "An Introduction to Children First" is one of five mandatory HSELanD e-learning modules every member of staff must complete, alongside modules like Hand Hygiene and Open Disclosure. It applies to permanent, temporary, agency and locum staff, students, and volunteers working in HSE or HSE-funded services. Contracted service providers are strongly urged to complete it too, and can access a dedicated Children First e-learning platform separate from HSELanD if they don't have HSE staff access.

Second, and legally more significant: are you a "mandated person" under the Children First Act 2015? This is a specific legal category, not just a job description. Schedule 2 of the Act lists defined classes of professional who carry an additional statutory duty to report child protection concerns to Tusla. In a healthcare context, mandated persons include registered medical practitioners, registered nurses and midwives, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, registered dentists, psychologists, social care workers and social workers eligible for registration under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005, and emergency medical technicians, paramedics and advanced paramedics registered with the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council.

If you fall into one of these categories, you have two specific legal duties under the Act: to report harm to a child — where you know, believe, or reasonably suspect it — above a defined threshold to Tusla, and to assist Tusla, if asked, in assessing a concern that has already been the subject of a mandated report. Training isn't itself the legal obligation, but it's how mandated persons — and everyone else in a caring role — come to understand what that obligation actually means in practice, which is why the HSE and most healthcare employers treat completion as non-negotiable.

What the training covers

According to the HSE's own Children First training page, the core module teaches staff to recognise child abuse and to report a concern about a child's welfare appropriately, and covers roles and responsibilities under both the Children First National Guidance (2017) and the Children First Act (2015). Staff who need to go further — because they're mandated persons, or because their role puts them in regular contact with children — can also access more targeted follow-on training: a dedicated Children First workshop for mandated persons, training aimed specifically at recognising and reporting concerns, a briefing for line managers, and a voluntary module on responding to adult retrospective disclosures of childhood abuse.

It sits alongside, rather than replaces, an organisation's own child safeguarding statement — the written risk assessment and set of procedures every service working with children in Ireland is required to have in place.

How it's delivered and how long it takes

For HSE and HSE-funded staff, "An Introduction to Children First" is delivered as e-learning through HSELanD, the HSE's online learning platform, and takes around 90 minutes to complete, including a short assessment you need to pass to receive your certificate. It's accessible from a phone, tablet or PC, and a classroom-based alternative is available for staff who have literacy needs or don't have reliable access to the e-learning platform. It counts as working time and is provided free of charge.

Staff in contracted services who aren't HSE employees, and volunteers in HSE, HSE-funded or HSE-contracted services, complete the equivalent module through a separate Children First e-learning site rather than through HSELanD directly. Private healthcare providers and other non-HSE employers aren't bound by the HSE's own internal policy, but because the legal definitions of mandated person and the reporting duties come from the Act itself, most reputable private providers, nursing homes, and section 39 organisations source equivalent Children First training independently — either through Tusla-aligned e-learning providers or in-house safeguarding programmes built around the same National Guidance.

Children First fits into a small cluster of foundational compliance modules that most healthcare employers expect on day one. If you're mapping out what else typically sits alongside it, our guides to Hand Hygiene training and Open Disclosure training cover two of the other HSELanD mandatory modules in the same way.

Certificate validity and refreshing your training

The HSE's Children First training page states plainly that certificates for "An Introduction to Children First" are valid for three years, after which staff need to recertify by completing the module again. That's the one clear renewal figure we could verify from a primary source, so treat it as the benchmark for HSE and HSE-funded staff specifically — if you work for a different employer, check your own organisation's safeguarding policy, since a private provider or section 39 body may set its own refresher interval rather than following the HSE's schedule exactly.

What happens after training

Completing the module doesn't end your safeguarding responsibilities — it's meant to equip you to act on them. If a concern arises, the Children First framework expects you to raise it through your organisation's own child safeguarding procedures and, where the legal threshold is met, to report it to Tusla. Mandated persons have a personal statutory duty to do this directly; other staff are expected to follow their employer's internal reporting line, which should ultimately connect to the same Tusla process. Tusla publishes contact details for local social work duty teams on tusla.ie, and every HSE and HSE-funded service is expected to have a designated liaison person for child protection concerns.

Frequently asked questions

Is Children First training a legal requirement for all healthcare staff?
Not for everyone in the same way. The statutory reporting duty under the Children First Act 2015 applies specifically to "mandated persons" — a defined list of registered professionals including doctors, nurses, midwives, and several allied health and social care roles. For other HSE and HSE-funded staff, completing the training is a mandatory condition of employment even though the personal legal reporting duty doesn't apply in the same way.

How is Children First training different from Hand Hygiene or Open Disclosure training?
All three sit on the HSE's list of five mandatory HSELanD e-learning modules for staff, but they cover completely different ground — Children First is about recognising and reporting child protection concerns, while modules like Hand Hygiene and Open Disclosure deal with infection control and how you communicate with patients after something goes wrong in their care.

Do agency, locum and student staff need to complete it too?
Yes. The HSE's own guidance is explicit that permanent, temporary, agency, locum and visiting staff, along with students and volunteers in HSE and HSE-funded services, are all expected to complete "An Introduction to Children First."

What if I work for a private healthcare provider rather than the HSE?
The HSE's mandatory training policy technically only binds HSE and HSE-funded services directly, but the legal obligations in the Children First Act 2015 apply regardless of who employs you if you're a mandated person. Most private providers source equivalent training independently, so check with your employer's HR or safeguarding lead which version you're expected to complete.

Children First training is one of the shorter mandatory modules a healthcare worker in Ireland will complete, but it carries real weight — it's the foundation for recognising when a child might be at risk and knowing exactly what to do about it. If you're not sure whether you're a mandated person, or whether your certificate has lapsed, your employer's HR or safeguarding lead — or Tusla's own guidance at tusla.ie — is the right place to check.

This guide is part of Learnsignal's ongoing coverage of professional qualifications and training routes.