Working With Children Check (WA)
CodesAPI credentialType WWCC_WASpreadsheet import wwcc with State WAAll credential codes
A Working With Children Check (WWC) is the clearance required to do child-related work in Western Australia, administered by the Department of Communities. WA publishes a fast public card-validation page, so this is one of the simplest states to run: no login, no captcha, an answer in seconds.
Who needs it
Anyone engaged in child-related work in Western Australia, employees and volunteers alike.
What Oho needs
The notice (card) number and the holder's surname. That's all — no date of birth, no full name.
1234567 — digits only, no letters and no punctuation.
Spaces are ignored and leading zeros are dropped, so 0001234567 and 1234567 are the same number to Oho. A notice number beginning with 1 can be up to ten digits; otherwise nine is the maximum.
If your records carry the number with a letter prefix from another system, strip it — WA's register won't recognise anything but digits.
Before you start
Nothing. WA's register is public, so there's no login, no portal account and no configuration beyond adding the Verification Source.
There's no employer linkage in Western Australia either — the Department records no employer against the check, so the obligation to keep it current sits with the holder.
How Oho verifies it
Oho submits the notice number and surname to the Department's public validation page and reads the answer back in real time, typically in a few seconds.
If the surname on file doesn't match, Oho automatically retries with the worker's alternate or preferred surname where one is recorded — so a card held under a maiden name is usually found without anyone intervening. The surname that matched is recorded 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 (eligibility) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | No decision yet — someone has to read the result and record one. Not a softer kind of pass: the worker counts as non-compliant until they do. | REVIEW_REQUIRED |
| In progress | Blue | Still being checked. | IN_PROGRESS |
| Couldn't verify | Grey | The source couldn't be reached; Oho will try again. | ERROR |
Validity and expiry are tracked separately from that verdict, and the badge always shows the most serious state on record — so these appear instead of one of the five above:
| Status (as shown in the app) | Colour | What it means | API value (statusDetail) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expiring soon | Yellow | Still valid, but inside your expiry lead time — 30 days by default. Time to get the renewal moving. | EXPIRING_SOON |
| Expired | Red | The expiry date has passed, so the worker is no longer covered. | EXPIRED |
| Conditions to review | Yellow | The register attached a condition or a notation that someone has to read and decide on. | CONDITIONS_TO_REVIEW |
| Pending decision | Blue | The issuing authority has yet to decide on an application. | PENDING_DECISION |
A problem the register reports outright — the clearance revoked, no matching record, a newer card superseding this one — shows under its own name in red or grey, alongside the same statusDetail value. Every one of them is listed in what a check result means.
| What the register says | What Oho shows | Why |
|---|---|---|
Card number 1234567 for A. Citizen is valid on the date of… | May engage | Current card, surname matches |
Please check the WWC Card number… | May not engage | Nothing on the register matched |
| Anything else | Under review | Wording Oho doesn't recognise — worth a person reading it |
The register says the card is valid on the date of the check. It doesn't return an expiry date, so Oho tracks expiry from the date you supplied when the credential was added. Fill in Expiry Date on an import if you want expiry warnings for WA cards.
If that date passes but the register still says the card is valid, the worker has almost certainly renewed without anyone updating Oho. Rather than showing them as expired against the register's own answer, Oho clears the out-of-date value and raises Add the expiry date in Review & Decide. The worker stays able to engage in the meantime; enter the expiry from their card to turn renewal warnings back on. See When the expiry date goes stale.
When it doesn't verify
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| May not engage — check the card number | The number or surname didn't match the register | Check the number is digits only, then check the surname against the card |
| May not engage after a name change | Both the recorded and alternate surname were tried and neither matched | Add the surname as the register holds it to the worker's record and re-run |
| The number won't submit | It contains letters or is longer than the register accepts | Strip any prefix. Ten digits only if it starts with 1, otherwise nine |
| Under review | The register returned wording Oho doesn't recognise | Open the check and read the raw message; raise it with support if the page appears to have changed |
| No expiry warnings for WA cards | WA doesn't publish expiry, and none was supplied | Add the expiry date from the card to the credential |
| Add the expiry date in Review & Decide | The register says the card is valid, but the date on file had passed | Open it and enter the expiry printed on the card, or dismiss it if you can't get to the card |
When the expiry date goes stale
WA is the only state where this can happen, because it's the only register that publishes no expiry date of its own. Everywhere else the register's own date is authoritative and simply overwrites whatever Oho held.
A WA card renewed without the new date reaching Oho produces a contradiction: the register clears the worker, and the old date says they've expired. Oho resolves it in the register's favour.
- A scheduled check returns valid, and the expiry on file is in the past.
- The out-of-date value is cleared, so it stops overriding the register. The worker shows as May engage.
- Add the expiry date appears in Review & Decide, showing the register's response, the check history, and the date that was removed.
- A reviewer enters the expiry printed on the card. Renewal warnings resume from the new date.
An expiry still in the future is never touched — the register neither confirms nor contradicts it, so it stands.
The review clears itself the moment an expiry arrives, whatever supplied it: the modal, a capture request, an HR system connector, or the API. Nobody has to open the queue for it to resolve. Dismissing it is a legitimate outcome — the card stays valid, it just has no renewal date until one is recorded.
Renewals & monitoring
Renewals flow through automatically — a renewed WA card keeps its notice number, so nothing needs re-entering and the next check picks up the new validity on its own.
Because there's no employer linkage, nothing pushes a change to you: WA monitoring is entirely Oho's scheduled re-checks. The register is fast and public, so a daily cadence is comfortable even across a large workforce — this is a good state to check often.