Working with Vulnerable People (TAS)
Tasmania does not use a "Working With Children Check" by that name. It issues a Working with Vulnerable People (WWVP) registration, which is broader than a child-only check — it covers regulated activities involving vulnerable people generally, children included. Oho confirms it against the Department of Justice's public status-check page.
Who needs it
Anyone engaged in regulated activity with vulnerable people in Tasmania, including child-related work, employees and volunteers alike.
Because WWVP is broader than a child-only check, a valid Tasmanian registration covers work with vulnerable people generally — you don't need a separate child-specific clearance on top of it.
What Oho needs
The registration number and the holder's surname. No date of birth.
1234567 — digits only, typically six to twelve of them. Spaces are ignored.
Tasmania's register is matched on the whole surname, kept together rather than split — so a compound surname like Moriarty Kelly should be entered as it appears on the card, not reduced to one part.
Before you start
Nothing to configure for your organisation — the status-check page is public, and there's no employer linkage recorded against a Tasmanian registration.
One thing to be aware of: the page is protected by reCAPTCHA, which Oho solves automatically. That's handled for you, but it's why a Tasmanian check takes a minute or two rather than seconds.
How Oho verifies it
Oho works through the reCAPTCHA on the Department's status-check page, submits the registration number and surname, and reads the answer back. Expect a minute or two rather than seconds.
Oho reuses a verified session for a few minutes after solving a captcha, so a batch of Tasmanian workers checked together is faster per worker than one checked alone. Where a first attempt returns no match, Oho retries once before moving on, and also retries with the worker's alternate or preferred surname where one is recorded.
Tasmania returns more than a status: the registration's expiry date, whether it's an Employee or Volunteer registration, and the organisations recorded against it all come back and are stored on the check.
Reading the result
Every check resolves to one of these outcomes:
| Status (as shown in the app) | Colour | What it means | API value |
|---|---|---|---|
| May engage | Green | Valid and current — the person is cleared for the work. | MAY_ENGAGE |
| May not engage | Red | Not valid — expired, suspended, not found, or a match on a ban register. | MAY_NOT_ENGAGE |
| Under review | Yellow | Cleared, but worth a closer look — for example a condition on the clearance, a possible match, or an expiry coming up. | REVIEW_REQUIRED |
| In progress | Grey | Still being checked. | IN_PROGRESS |
| Error | Grey | The source couldn't be reached; Oho will try again. | ERROR |
Tasmania's own status wording maps as follows:
| What the register says | What Oho shows | Why |
|---|---|---|
Registered | May engage | Current registration. Expiry and card type come back with it |
Under assessment | In progress | Applied for, not yet decided |
Incomplete | May not engage | An application that was never finished — not a registration |
No Registration Found for Application | May not engage | Nothing on the register matched |
| Anything else | Under review | Wording Oho doesn't recognise |
Incomplete is the one to watch. The worker has started the process, so they may well believe they're registered — but an incomplete application confers nothing. Treat it as no registration, not as pending.
When it doesn't verify
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| May not engage — no registration found | The number or surname didn't match, after a retry and an alternate-name attempt | Check the number is digits only, and enter compound surnames in full as printed on the card |
| May not engage — incomplete | The worker has an unfinished application | They need to complete it. Nothing on your side will make this green |
| In progress — under assessment | A genuine pending application | Wait. Oho will pick up the decision on a later check |
| Error — registry unavailable | The Department's page is down or refusing traffic | Nothing. Oho retries on the next run |
| Checks slower than other states | Expected — the captcha is the cost | Nothing. Batching Tasmanian workers together is faster per worker |
Renewals & monitoring
Renewals flow through automatically — the registration number stays the same, and the register's expiry date comes back with each check, so Oho's expiry tracking stays accurate without you maintaining it.
There's no employer linkage, so nothing pushes a change to you; Tasmanian monitoring is Oho's scheduled re-checks alone. Because each check carries a captcha, a very frequent cadence across a large Tasmanian workforce takes real time — daily is comfortable, hourly is not.